Rise
by LeaderPinhead
Summary: The third and final story in the Pint Sized series. First there were little robots, then there were sparklings. Now Victoria will have to face an even bigger challenge as she learns to transition into the new form, culture, and life forced upon her while simultaneously coping with the powerful AllSpark forcibly trapped within her. [Put on Hiatus for the moment]
1. Prologue: The Beginning Again

**AN:** Sooooooooooooo…it's been a while. But I have finally returned with the anticipated sequel to A New Version of Reality :D

Of course, this is the direct sequel to both _Pint Sized_ and _A New Version of Reality_, so new readers should definitely stop by those two stories first before beginning this one. Old readers are probably wondering why the heck it took so long to finally publish this story and for that there is a simple answer: life (and writer's block; but mostly life). I don't even know when the next chapter will be ready, but that's a worry for next time :D

**QUICK AND IMPORTANT NOTE: **To avoid any confusion the first section may inspire, the list of the original Thirteen Primes I'll be referring to throughout the story will be the ones of the **Aligned Continuity**. This list can be found at tfwiki . net(slash) wiki (slash) Thirteen_Primes (sans the spaces and replacing words with appropriate symbols) along with some information about them (some more than others). The only exceptions to this list will be Vector Prime and The Fallen, who will function more as their "multiverse" counterparts (i.e. The Fallen will still be the jerk from ROTF only with a mixture of Aligned background, and Vector will be…Vector). Any other confusion aside from the Primes I'll be using will have to be resolved as the story goes on ;P

Time Units

Solar Cycle: 1 day  
Joor: 1 hour

* * *

Rise

Prologue

The Beginning Again

* * *

_They sat at the top of the highest temple. The growing city glowed from this angle. Spears of shining metal reached towards the open sky while the expanse beyond it painted a beautiful backdrop. Rainbows formed when the light hit the crystal formations surrounding the base of the towers, and every so often, a tiny mechanical beast could be found ambling through the crystals._

_Far below them wondered the creatures that made them throb with pride. Their children worked hard to create the first city on the newly formed planet. They watched Megatronus intently listen to Solus while she directed the formation of a new tower, her mighty Forge being used to its full potential. Quintus watched her work with unbridled eagerness, waiting for the creation of the fully functioning laboratory he had been promised, while Alpha Trion sat off to the side documenting everything that occurred with Vector watching over his shoulder. _

_From the crystals came Onyx, his bestial form gaining the trust of small, mechanical beasts that dwelled there, and upon his back sat the tiniest of their creations, Micronus. Both mechs jumped back, and a whirl of loud shouts sprung from Micronus when Amalgamous jumped out from behind one of the crystal formations. With a hearty laugh, Amalgamous transformed, and Micronus spurred an amused Onyx to give chase. _

_In their chase, they encountered the largest of their creations. Nexus watched the trio circle him, now distracted from the small crystal garden he had been tending. After Amalgamous had passed by him four times, his large hand abruptly shot out and smacked the back of the shifter's chosen form. Amalgamous spun out of control until he landed in the shallow pool of Energon that Nexus' crystal garden framed, and a booming laugh bounced off the crystals to echo through the city. _

_Another pulse of pride swept through them. This was their creations at work—their proudest accomplishment. Soon, Cybertron's first city would be complete, and Primus would grant them his consent to create more sparks. Their eldest creations would guide those new sparks into a flourishing new society, and the overwhelming thought made them want to create new life that very instant!_

_However, patience outweighed the eagerness. Vector Sigma had promised to tell them when it was opportune time to create life—when Primus had given his consent. They didn't want their new creations to suffer because they had acted too quickly. _

_"__You must understand our reservations, Prima!"_

_They shifted their attention away from the city for a moment and focused on the rest of their creations stepping into the hall behind them. Prima led the small group, his pristine white armor reflecting the light as brilliantly as the city. The light was absorbed by the thick grey armor that protected Alchemist as he strode beside the leading Prime. They acknowledged Prima's revered bow to them but immediately focused on the two mechs that stood behind Prima and Alchemist._

_"__There is no need to worry, Alchemist," Prima said. He walked past their platform to watch the others from the window. A small smile flitted across his face before he turned back to the Prime he addressed. "The AllSpark is in no danger while it remains here in the citadel. Solus went to many lengths with her Forge to insure that."_

_"__But the fact still remains that the citadel remains frighteningly open!" Alchemist moved to join Prima by the large window, his hand coming up to briefly rest on top of them. They warmed at the touch but remained focused on the dark mech that took Alchemist's place beside them. "We may have been able to banish Unicron, but that still does not lighten the potential threat of the other races that Quintus assures thrive beyond Cybertron!"_

_"__You base your worries on the assumption that these races will come with nothing but ill intent." _

_"__And you base your argument on the naïve assumption that they won't!"_

_A heavy hand landed on top of them. "Alchemist, please. You're worrying yourself on but a fool's assumption! Quintus has always had an overworked processor and assumes he knows more than all of us combined simply because he can identify the minerals that make up our Energon crystals. If anything, this is nothing but a ruse for him to be granted permission to gallivant into the stars and leave us here to do all the dirty work."_

_"__But Alchemist's worries do hold merit." The deep and calm voice of their youngest caused the other three Primes to turn towards him with their undivided attention. The hand clenched before relaxing. "If I may offer a suggestion : Prima, perhaps we can ask Solus to add to the fortifications she has already provided, but allow the citadel to remain open at the wishes of the AllSpark. I trust our sister Prime would be happy to oblige and display her workmanship while Alchemist and any other with the same worry are reassured."_

_Prima smiled at the young Prime. "Are there any present who oppose this proposal?" The hand twitched but otherwise remained still. "Then so it shall be. I will approach Solus with the suggestion at the end of the solar cycle. If your worries become too much before then Alchemist, then you may remain here with the AllSpark to ensure its safety. Otherwise, Optimus and I have plans to explore the crystal gardens and insure that Nexus has not discovered a way to create an exploding crystal to aid in his pranks. Both of you are free to join us if you please."_

_With that said, Prima led the way out of the room. Alchemist and Optimus followed closely behind him, and the hand that rested on them clenched again before the final mech followed as well. They focused on the dark kibble that swayed after the Prime before their attention drifted once more to the thin glass that separated them from the glowing city._

_It wouldn't be much longer…_

**~III~**

"Pixel?"

Victoria jerked back at the light touch that accompanied the voice, unconsciously clutching the slender data-pad in her hand. The distant stars beyond the thick glass flickered, and space debris drifted closer to the ship. Her optics involuntarily adjusted to the image being reflected on the glass until she was able to clearly see the orange helm and silver faced femme frowning back at her.

Framed around the femme was a large white frame with red accents, and his dark blue optics stared down at her with a slight frown. The image shifted. "Are you all right?"

Victoria shook her head to clear her thoughts, ignoring the mimicking femme, and turned to look up at the massive mech. Skyfire continued to stare down at her, and he shifted the stack of data-pads he held to one arm and reached towards her with the other. He hesitated just short of touching her shoulder before pulling back. "I don't normally see you wondering around the ship without Mirage or Patronus."

Victoria took in a deep breath, noticing the deep throb centered in her chest. She loosened her grip on the data-pad and used one hand to rub the slopping armor of her upper chest. "I'm fine. Mirage just…sent me to get this data-pad for him."

She hated how the massive mech continued to frown at her, optics dimming. "You didn't respond the first few times I called your name."

Faint images of a glowing city flashed before her eyes, and her hand pressed harder against her chest. "Sorry. I was just…lost in thought."

Skyfire stared at her for a long moment—long enough to make her twitch—before he nodded. "If you're sure you're okay. Not to be abrupt or anything, but would you like to get a cube with me later? Maybe you can even meet a few of the other mechs on board."

Victoria started to shake her head before he had finished. She took one cautious step to the side. "Sorry, I've got…things to do. And me and Patronus usually share our evening cube together in our room. But thanks for the offer."

Skyfire didn't appear to be upset by her answer, but Victoria could see the slight drop in his wings before she hurried down the corridor. A part of her felt bad for shooting down the offer from the friendly mech; a part of her wanted to go back and accept it.

However, she couldn't bring herself to go back. Meeting the other mechs and becoming a part of the crew meant she had to finally acknowledge that the past week had really happened; that _this_ was her life now. Despite her initial drive to push past the shock of her new position, a continued perseverance was harder. She still onlined every cycle with a little hope that she would wake up in her own bed and hearing that dreaded name Mirage had given her was driving her crazy!

If only the AllSpark would give her a moment's peace. No strange visions, no sharp pains in her chest, no weird whispers in her ear. Patronus was the only one who seemed to understand her need for isolation at the moment even when he contributed to her worries by getting fighting advice (because that made it sound less stressful than training) from the "co-captain" of the ship.

And here she was—grabbing data-pads from Mirage's room in his poor attempt to get her out of her hab-suite. At least she didn't trip on air with every step she took now.

The sight of her door caused her shoulders to sag, and she tried not to twitch at the unfamiliar sensation of her armor loosening after it had naturally clamped down in response to her stress. She took a moment to revel in typing the code to her door, which she had asked Mirage to change to her birthday. It was childish in a way, but it was one of the few ways she had learned to rebel against her forced fate. As much as she tried to submit to living as a Cybertronian now, she was still human on the inside. She felt that she needed to hold on to that old identity as much as she needed to accept the new one.

Mirage looked up the instant she entered the room. His golden optics swept up and down her form, and he frowned at the data-pad she held. "You found it that quickly?"

"Yes." Victoria held it out for him, and he hesitated before taking it. She dropped down into the chair across from him and threw her legs onto the top of the table. "It was exactly where you said it wouldn't be—the bottom left drawer of the desk."

Mirage's frown deepened at the sight of her feet on the table, but he said nothing about it as he turned on the Cybertronian tablet. "I was expecting you to be gone a little longer."

"Getting bored of playing teacher already?"

"Hardly." The former noble glanced up, and Victoria smiled at him. When he remained unmoved, she let the smile fall and stared back with an expression as flat as his. "I recently received a request to speak to Skyfire."

"What for?"

"Apparently, there is a crew member that has sparked his worry."

"I hope they're okay."

Mirage placed the data-pad on the edge of the table and leaned forward to balance his chin on the top of his hands. "How are you doing this cycle?"

"I'm fine."

Victoria stared back into Mirage's gaze, fighting the urge to rub her chest at the familiar spasm she endured. She had almost learned how to keep her body from responding to it, but a limb always reacted in some way. Victoria knew that Mirage had picked up on the tic—he jerked his chair back the moment her finger twitched and avoided a heel to the shin—but he only vented when she kept her mouth firmly shut and turned his attentions back to the data-pad. "Then on to today's history lesson. The line we are having you claim the heritage of arrived in the Towers at the turn of the Golden Age…"

Victoria could only feign slight interest in her "family history" as she leaned back in chair, holding a hand over her spark as the presence of the AllSpark finally abated for the day. She stared at the data-pad Mirage gave her and allowed her thoughts to wander to the real family she had snatched from.

**~III~**

"Buu-_lue_!"

Bluestreak laughed at the offended tone the sparkling at his feet possessed. He bent down and gently swept Recall into his hand. The mechling chirped and melted into sharpshooter's hand with purrs of comforting joy. Bluestreak's door-wings shifted in response to the reaction, and he leaned down when Recall gestured at him, smiling when the mechling reached up to tap their noses together in greeting.

Jazz, who had been the main Autobot put on sparkling sitting duty for the day, chuckled at Recall's actions. He swiftly reached down to keep Grimlock from escaping through the door slowly closing behind Bluestreak. "Bitlet's been standin' by the door a full joor now. What took ya so long, Baby Blue?"

Bluestreak's smile twitched downward for a moment at the subtle change in Jazz's voice. He pretended he hadn't heard the older mech and smiled down at the second sparkling that came to greet him. Topaz buzzed, concentrating on pulling herself up by Bluestreak's foot, and the Praxian watched without attempting to help her. Bulkhead had tried once, right when the femmeling Mini-Bot had started crawling, and Topaz had let them all know that she did _not_ need anyone's help.

Topaz squealed the moment she was standing, and Recall cheered, clapping his hands and yelling, "Yay! Yay!" The cheers caught the attention of the other sparklings, and Swoop and Snarl began clapping as well while Grimlock only pouted at his failed escape. Ravage, who had been lying in the corner and keeping an optic on Laserbeak, merely yawned while his sparkling-fied Cassette sister chirped and did a dance of approval before him.

The loud cheers warmed Bluestreak's spark. It reminded him that amidst the struggles the Autobots were currently facing—from rounding up stray Decepticons to the political issues Optimus handled at the moment—there was still that tiny portion of joy the sparklings inspired. They were the last generation of Cybertronians now that the AllSpark, by Optimus' vague admission, was no longer with them. Bluestreak wanted to keep them safe and happy more than anything. Everyone currently stationed at Diego Garcia wanted that, but Bluestreak most of all.

That's why he endured Jazz's hard stare, a mixture of worry and disapproval. "Ya gonna answer my question, Bluestreak or keep pretendin' ya didn't hear?"

"I just got held up," Bluestreak answered. He lowered his hand for Recall to jump off and join his sister, giving her a big, crushing hug that made Topaz grunt in her usual annoyance. The femmeling smacked her brother, and Bluestreak chuckled. "You want me to show up after a mission splattered in Energon? Plus, I ran into Aid and Barricade over by the showers."

It took a moment for Jazz to hum in acknowledgement, watching Bluestreak with a dark visor. There was something insulting in the way the saboteur took so long to believe to him, but after six months of being on the wrong end of suspicion, Bluestreak had grown used to it. It was just harder to see Jazz so reluctant to trust him when he _was_ actually telling the truth. "Ratch's been thinkin' it'd be good fo' 'Cade to hang out with the li'l sparks now. Ya know, once we see how he handles himself 'round 'em. Wouldn't want the guy squishin' Beaky 'cause he gets excited."

Bluestreak gave a short nod. Barricade had been playing in the puddles of water when Bluestreak had arrived at the showers, and First Aid had been having a hard time settling the former Decepticon down long enough wash his armor. It had taken a lot of complicated scans and words for Ratchet to convince everyone that the former Decepticon scout was all but a sparkling now. Too much damage had been done to Barricade by the human terrorist organization known as MECH: melted processor chips, fried neural wires, even chunks of missing hardware. Barricade needed a certified specialist to mend the damage, not to mention the hard-to-find materials that would be needed by said specialist. Until then, Barricade was left to function as a sparkling would in a mech's body.

"That'd be a great idea. First Aid told me they had been trying to teach Barricade how to handle small and fragile objects while he's been cooped up in the med-bay. He still has a hard time minding his own strength, but they're getting somewhere." Bluestreak bent down to where Recall now attempted to perform flips for Topaz's entertainment. "Wouldn't it be fun to have another playmate?"

Recall paused his flips to look up at Bluestreak with hopeful optics. "Starry? Starry come play?"

The air between the two mechs became tense, but it only lasted long enough for Swoop to drag Recall and Topaz into a sparkling game with him and his brothers. Bluestreak's door-wings fluttered, and he stood from his crouch, optics trained on the sparklings until he was satisfied with Swoop's successful diversion.

Jazz placed his hands on his hips. "We still ain tellin' 'em?"

"What can we say? 'Sorry, buddy, but Skywarp and Star hates your caretaker's guts, so they're punishing you guys too.' I don't really think that would go over well."

"That's a li'l harsh."

"But that's the truth." Recall and Snarl shrieked and ran from Grimlock, who snapped at them in his dino-mode and gave chase. Bluestreak smiled at the sparklings' antics and vented. "The only Seeker that's civil to _anybody_ right now is Thundercracker, and if it wasn't for him, Star wouldn't even come to play."

Jazz hummed. "He aint got all the time in the world to be settin' up playdates though."

"Yeah, not with all this business with the humans. Did you hear how he demanded that Optimus let him stand in on every conversation the humans wanted to have about the 'Cons? And Optimus didn't even fight him on it."

"He should. He's got as much right as anybody else to tear apart our pinhead liaison's sorry arguments." Jazz turned to grin at Bluestreak while Ravage yowled when a Dino-sparkling snapped at his tail. "And TC's got some pent up anger he saves 'specially for that fragger. Helps him get a li'l creative fo' those meetings."

Bluestreak released a short laugh, and a stretch of silence between the two mechs followed. The sharpshooter shifted when Swoop won a round of the sparklings' game. "I've gotta—"

"Blue." Bluestreak tensed, and his spark twisted. All of Jazz's previous humor had vanished with that one word. "If there's _anything_ ya wanna tell me…"

"It's nothing, Jazz."

"Prowler's startin' to worry 'bout you an' ya new…_friend_."

Bluestreak frowned at both the revelation of his former Guardian's worry and Jazz's hesitant wording. He flung his door-wings up to their full height. "If he's worried, then he can come and talk to me. Other than that, everything's fine. _I'm_ fine."

"Blue—"

"Yo, babble-bot!"

Both Autobots jumped in surprise at the sound of the impatient voice. Frenzy chittered and began to teasingly block the open door from Grimlock, who had abandoned the game to rush at the door. Rumble didn't spare a second glance in their direction as he held the door open and glared at Bluestreak. "You're late, and boss bot's startin' to get impatient."

Bluestreak glanced over at Recall and Topaz, the former now utterly content with rolling on the floor with Snarl while the latter used the little doctor's kit Ratchet had given her to gravely listen to Laserbeak's forehead. He turned back to Jazz. There was a new glint in the silver mech's visor that Bluestreak ignored. "I'll see you guys later tonight when I come back to put Recall and Topaz to bed."

"It's been six months."

The Autobot sharpshooter stopped to stare at Jazz, noting the lack of playful slur the mech's accented voice usually carried. Periwinkle optics stared into an uncompromising strip of navy blue, and Bluestreak finally felt the distance that had come between him and the playful saboteur. The same distance stood between him and many of the mechs on the NEST base. The event six months ago that had begun unraveling their alliance with the humans had affected them in various ways, whether it had been a blow to stubborn pride, the guilt of allowing it to happen, or from the loss of close comrades and friends.

However, the others had moved on by now. There were other pressing matters that needed their attention and wallowing in the past would do them no good. It was a mentality that had been unwittingly picked up after centuries of war and death. They're the ones who got the short end of the deal: the dead got to rest, but the living had to keep moving forward.

Jazz's statement was meant to remind Bluestreak of that little fact, but the sharpshooter remained steadfast in his own facts. "I know, Jazz. Tell Recall I'll be back later."

Bluestreak walked out of the hangar with only a backwards glance at the sparklings to ensure they were safe. Victoria would have his head if she came back to a group of upset sparklings.

* * *

**AN:** If you can't tell by now, there's gonna be _a lot_ going on in this story ;P Apologies in advance for having absolutely no idea when I'll be able to upload the next chapter. I've gotta clear plan of what I _want_ to happen, but recent stress about my writing in general is making it difficult to execute D:

But I got some interesting things planned for this and some things I'll be experimenting with along the way. I know I said this at the beginning of the last story (and it didn't really pan out…), but I'll most definitely be going into the dramatic/maybe a little dark aspects of a story line. Don't know how that plan will morph along the way, but hopefully, this'll end up being an entertaining experience ;D

So, until I get time!


	2. Finding a Place - Victoria

**AN: **After nearly two months, I have returned! Sorry for the wait, but university papers and finals unfortunately come before fanfiction :( But since summer has now arrived and I have nearly two months of nothing ahead of me, I can _hopefully_ start updating at a much more regular rate. Because I got tons of ideas for this story, and I can't get to them until I write the beginning and middle ;P

Time Units

Orn: 13 days  
Deca-Cycle: ~3 weeks  
Breem: 8.3 minutes  
Megacycle: ~2.6 hours

* * *

Rise

Chapter One

Finding a Place

* * *

"Time to online an' smell the Energon brewing—the rotation cycle has begun! While you 'bots be openin' them shutters, we got the latest on the _Altair_ buzz. Seems here we got something brewin' down in the labs: anybody not willin' to become 'Storm's latest test subject better steer clear. On a lighter note, auditions fo' the bi-ornly talent show is still open. Mechs, we only got Siren signed up so far…don't make us suffer through that alone again. Now here's some tunes to get ya moving!"

A quick, eclectic beat began to play, but Victoria continued to stare at the ceiling above her. Her fingers twitched where they rested on her abdomen. "At least the music's decent."

A short laugh came from the other side of the room, and Victoria turned her head. Patronus laid on the other berth, balanced on his cockpit. His dark wings twitched a beat after the music, and the silver decals occasionally flashed in the lights.

"You don't like it?"

"It's…weird." Patronus shifted, and his wings fanned out behind him in a wide arc when he sat up. "It doesn't sound like anything from…I haven't heard anything like it before."

Victoria hummed and mimicked his movements. She didn't make a comment towards his lengthy pause; the mech that had once been her adorable Toshi refused to divulge what had happened during his final moments on Earth, and she couldn't force him to talk when she was tight-lipped about what happened to her. Instead, she swiped a finger across the thing layer of dust visible on the black paint of her hip guard. "Why is dust so attracted to black?"

"You're telling me." Patronus' wings made a circular motion behind him. "If it wasn't for the 'shower once a week' rule, I'd be spending a lot more time in there. I think Megatron makes sure I leave his lessons covered in grime just for his amusement."

Victoria felt her smile fall, and she jumped off the berth. "How about some Energon? Maybe I'll be able to finally drink a cube without my imaginary gag reflex."

Patronus nodded and followed her lead. He was silent as he walked behind her, his ruby optics scanning the silent halls they took to reach the closest Energon dispenser. Victoria wasn't nearly as observant of their surroundings; her main goal was to reach the dispenser, get a cube, and make it back to their room without making contact with anything else—the beginning routine of every "day." Normally, that was an easy task since there was never anyone out and about this soon after the announcements, and they reached the Energon dispenser without any problems.

They were waiting for Patronus' cube when their routine took a sharp turn.

Victoria yelped when Patronus suddenly shoved her against the wall, making her almost drop the magenta cube she had been intently staring at. Before she could ask what he was doing, a yellow vehicle skidded around the corner. She stared at the strange hover car from the gap between Patronus' arm and body as it came to a screeching halt in front of them.

Seconds later, a yellow mech stood in its place and laughed in the direction he had come from. "What was that about me getting soft? Oh, what's that: you're too busy eating my dust to answer?"

The mech continued to snicker until he turned and saw Victoria and Patronus. He paused, smirk never wavering, and he reached out to the dispenser. "What're you staring at, hot shot? Never seen a famous racer before?"

Patronus relaxed, his armor clinking with his movements. "Famous racer? For beating yourself? That's amazing!"

Victoria frowned at the little clap Patronus did, but the yellow mech burst into a fit of laughter. "You're funny! Not anything like that thruster-up-the-aft Dreadwing. Speaking of which, I haven't seen you around the ship before. What poor excuse of a base did Megatron pull you from?"

The mech took a huge gulp from his cube of Energon, and Patronus did the same a beat later while Victoria's cube remained hovering in front of her. Her optics focused on the emblem on the mech's chest, and she felt her engine stutter.

However, she shouldn't have been so surprised by the Decepticon sigil. After all, Mirage had told her plenty of times that the ship was an awkward mix of Autobot and Decepticon, and she had been forced to attend another checkup by the Decepticon medic, Knock Out. Maybe it was the easy conversation Patronus was having with the Decepticon that really shocked her.

"Name's Drag Strip." The yellow mech took another sip of his cube. "You've probably heard of me before."

"Never have."

Victoria jumped when a black vehicle swerved around the corner, and she barely had time to see the new mech transform when Patronus shoved her against the wall behind him again. She could hear the clang of the black and yellow mechs colliding.

"You cheating fragger!"

"You can't cheat _skill_."

"False starts! Your career is nothing but false starts!"

"That was never proven and you know it!"

A blur of black and yellow went rolling across the floor, colorful curses filling the air between the harsh clangs of armor. Victoria had yet to find her voice, when a third vehicle appeared on the scene, and she couldn't figure out if she was happy to see Knock Out's massive assistant or more worried when he jumped into the fray without hesitation. "What did I say about starting fights outside of the hab-suite? Megatron will have our heads if you break another dispenser."

Breakdown received a foot to the face, and the fight began anew. Patronus' wings trembled, and Victoria placed her hand on one of them. The calming effect of her hand lasted for a split second, and then the black and red mech slammed against the wall beside them.

The mech yelped at the sharp blade pressed against his neck, and Drag Strip jerked in Breakdown's grip, all of his previous smirks gone. "Hey! Look here, slick—I'm the only one who can threaten Wildrider with a deadly weapon."

Patronus' blade didn't budge, and he turned to Victoria. "Are you okay?"

Victoria gaped up at Patronus. She stared at the scene before her: Patronus standing over Wildrider, who snarled and squirmed beneath the black Seeker's sword, Drag Strip kicking in the air while Breakdown held him with a loose grip. Her hands felt slick, and it was only when she glanced down that she noticed her grip had caused her Energon cube to crack. "I'm okay."

Patronus stared at her with dark red optics, and Victoria worried that he wouldn't let Wildrider go. After a tense moment of silence, Patronus retracted his blade and took a small step backwards. Wildrider cackled when Drag Strip was dropped a second later, and the tussling began anew.

Victoria tugged Patronus' hand, and he followed her away from the escalating battle. The femme cringed at the warning that appeared on her HUD, and she let go of Patronus' hand to rub the warm plating of her chest. Her spark pulsed, and she cringed again.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Victoria dropped her hand and frowned up at Patronus. She still felt weird about the role reversal she and Toshi had undergone: instead of her being the worried, maternalistic adult, _Patronus_ was the awkward guardian now. She should have been asking if he was all right. "I can go get Mirage if you need me to."

"Why did you react that way?"

Patronus' wings immediately dropped, and Victoria had studied enough wing motions to know what the gesture meant. She bit her lip to keep from taking the question back. "I was making sure you didn't get hurt? I'm your bodyguard now, remember?"

It was funny how the mech's voice, which now resonated so deeply, could still sound so young. 'That doesn't mean you just pull your weapons out like that. You could've really hurt someone—they could've hurt _you_!"

The wings drooped even lower, and Victoria forced her frame to vent; or tried—the vent morphed into a growl as her internal mechanisms rumbled on their own. She wanted to just reach out and hug the mech tight, but she settled for grabbing his hand again. "I'm sorry. I just…it's hard to see you put in a situation like that. In my eyes, you're still that little sparkling who made origami flowers."

Patronus gave her a small smile, and Victoria could feel the tension in her frame dwindle with each step they took towards their hab-suite. The warning on her HUD blinked off, and she gave Patronus' hand a brief squeeze. "But thank you for giving us an excuse to leave. They _were_ getting a little too rowdy."

Patronus' wings fluttered until they turned the corner. His frame went rigid, and he quickly released Victoria's hand. She didn't question it when she saw the slender blue and white mech standing beside their door. Mirage's golden optics followed the jerky motion, but Victoria made a noise to draw his attention to her instead. "What are you doing here so early?"

"Rude." Victoria fought to keep her scowl from morphing into a grin in response to Mirage's aristocratic chin lift. "A noble would merely invite a guest into their home and riddle their conversation afterwards with biting and subtle insults to their guest's rank. _Never_ outright question the sudden appearance of a fellow noble."

"What about the rule about not showing up uninvited?"

"That only applies to lower class nobles such as yourself. I am nobler than you and may do as I please."

Patronus keyed open the door with a light snicker, and Victoria scowled at Mirage's back when she followed him in. "That's…you're just making up these stupid rules now!"

"Sadly, I'm not." Mirage sat in his usual chair in the corner, one leg crossed over the other and his hands folded on top of his knee, while Patronus went to his berth to wait until his training session began. Victoria nodded at the scene set before her before she joined them. Routine had been reestablished.

"Many a noble would appear on my doorstep after I denounced my creator's business transactions when the war broke out," Mirage continued when Victoria had taken her seat across from him. "At least I abided by the common courtesy of waiting for your arrival instead of inviting myself in."

Victoria shook her head. "I hope you know that all of these rules are starting to get out of hand."

"Unfortunately, I have only now realized that."

Victoria smiled at the dry tone in Mirage's voice. With every lesson they had, whether it be about the aristocratic society or a mundane function of her body that needed to explained, Mirage's tone would become more deadpan than the last session. She had even heard him mutter a curse when she had asked him about the message about lubricants on her HUD. "So, what ridiculous high-class rule are we learning today? Or are we shoving more of Pixel's history down my throat?"

"Neither." Mirage paused, optics shifting from Victoria to Patronus. "After a brief discussion with certain members of the crew, I have decided that you should be given the same duties as the others."

Victoria stared at the slender mech sitting calmly across from her. She frowned at the series of light blue circles that focused around his face when she stared for too long. "How do I get this thing to stop telling what I already know?"

"You go through the same steps I showed you when disabling the alarm." Mirage shifted and crossed his arms over his chest. "Stop attempting to change the subject."

"I'm not. It's still telling me you're 'Mirage.'" Victoria tilted her head. "It turned red. I think it's yelling at me now."

"I would be too if you were no properly storing memory files." Mirage shook his head at the scowl he received. "It will only do that if you are constantly clearing the cache for your visor's memory. When you power down later don't clear the cache again. Now, back to our original topic."

"My visor has a separate memory system?"

Mirage groaned and glared at Patronus. The younger mech quickly covered his snickers with a burst of static from his vocalizer and began to examine the layer of dust on his armguards. The only hint of his humor was found in his wings, which twitched every so often. "Yes, now back to—"

"Why?"

"I don't know; I've never had a functional visor." Mirage paused, and his sharp optics glared into Victoria's optic band. "Are you finished?"

"Does that mean the other—what do you call them? Kibble. No, accessories. Does that mean that other accessories have their own caches too? Does everything really need its own memory space?"

"Would you like your brain module to explode with all the data you received from those accessories?"

Victoria's mouth snapped shut, and she stared at Mirage long enough for Patronus to stand and move to her side. His massive hand dwarfed her shoulder, and she shifted in her seat when he squeezed too hard. "You're lying."

"Am I?"

The femme searched for any hint that Mirage's words were false. Whereas it had become easier to distinguish annoyance in the noble's voice, his expressions remained stubbornly unreadable. There was no indicator of whether he spoke the truth or not. "I think you are."

"That's wonderful, but now you have no reason to avoid the topic at hand." Mirage stood from his chair and made a gesture towards Patronus. "You, of course, may attend to your usual schedule. Pixel will have no need of your services as I will be there to ensure her safety. We have quite a cycle ahead of us."

Victoria winced when Patronus' hand tightened, and she reached up to pat his am. He immediately released her shoulder, and Victoria could tell he was fighting to keep his wings from twitching. "But…I'm her bodyguard. I'm supposed to stay at her side when she's not in the safety of our hab-suite."

"Don't be ridiculous. No harm will come to her on the ship, and she has been outside the room multiple times without you."

Patronus twisted around so quickly that he nearly whacked Victoria with one of his wings. "You what? You told me you'd stay in the room when I wasn't here! What if you had encountered those mechs on your own? I mean, Breakdown is kinda okay, but Wildrider and Drag Strip weren't nearly as careful."

"Wildrider and Drag Strip?" Mirage frowned, golden optics bouncing back and forth between them. "When did you encounter the Stunticons?"

"When we were getting our Energon."

Mirage shifted from one foot to another, and his frown deepened. "But you didn't encounter Skyfire?"

"What did you do?" Victoria stood from her chair to stand in front of Mirage. The top of her head barely reached the top of his chest, and she resisted the urge to attempt standing on the tip of her toes. Instead she attempted to match her scowl with a hard glare, but it was hard to figure out if she accomplished that because Mirage merely tilted his head to the side with a smaller frown. "Don't play coy with me, Mirage. I know a failed scheme when I see one."

"I was merely curious. After all, I received a message from him that the Energon dispenser by the labs had stopped working and the dispenser you use is the closest." Mirage took a step to the side. "But enough of that. I have cleared my entire schedule to ensure you find an active position on this ship."

Mirage offered his arm for Victoria to weave hers through, and Patronus stepped forward, his wings twitching again. "But—"

"Patronus, I am beginning to take insult at your rebuffs." The younger mech's wings flared, and his optics brightened. Victoria frowned at Mirage while she took his arm. "While I may have formerly been but an average noble, I am now a fully trained Autobot soldier and efficiently trained under Black Ops. I am fully capable of keeping one femme out of trouble."

"Yeah, Patronus. He's part of Black Ops." Victoria smiled when Patronus' wings fell, and he turned a pitiful pout on her. "He's totally capable of sabotaging Energon dispensers to get two people together like the terrible matchmaker he is."

"I will have you know that Nightbeat is fully investigating this terrible incident, and he has yet to have any suspicion of my supposed involvement." Mirage tightened his arm and tugged her towards the door. "After all, the Stunticons use that dispenser regularly to annoy others, and as Patronus has already pointed out, they are not the most careful bunch on board."

Victoria hummed and turned back to Patronus before she was tugged out the door. Her smile softened when he hadn't lost his pout. "I'll be fine, Patronus. I'm a big girl—I can take care of myself sometimes."

Patronus' wings remained flattened against his back when Victoria followed Mirage out of the room.

**~III~**

"—and if I had my way, I'd just let you scrapheaps leak out until you figure out that maybe it's not a good idea to _open fire_ on each other in confined spaces. Don't touch my buffer!"

Victoria stepped closer to Mirage as the door slid shut behind them. Only Drag Strip, his yellow paint now scuffed and flecked with bright blue Energon, turned towards them. He stared for a brief moment before he turned his attention back to Breakdown, who was slowly backing away from a buffer under Knock Out's watchful glare. "You think you can sway me by offering a wax job? Do you think me so cheap? I have some dignity left!"

Breakdown muttered something that sent Wildrider, who was sitting on a berth next to Drag Strip, into a hysterical fit of laughter and earned him a quick whack to the head. Victoria watched the entire scene unfold and slowly leaned closer to Mirage. "Are all medics so threatening to their patients?"

"I believe it is a part of their programming, yes." Mirage leaned down closer to Victoria while Knock Out turned away from Wildrider to scowl at a sheepish Breakdown. "But I have yet to meet one that can match Knock Out's vanity."

"I heard that!" Victoria snapped her mouth shut, but Mirage calmly straightened to face the glaring Decepticon medic. Knock Out glowered at them before he swung around to smack Wildrider in the back of the head. "What part of lie down and shut up don't you understand?"

Wildrider grumbled, and Drag Strip snickered even more. Knock Out gave Breakdown, who looked the least damaged of the mechs, a stern glare until the larger mech meekly sat on an empty berth. He returned his attention to Victoria and Mirage. "What? My cycle's already been turned to slag by these idiots."

"Yes, poor you." Victoria felt the urge to step away from Mirage because of the vicious growl that escaped Knock Out. "Having to perform your duty as a medic instead of priming in front of the mirror—for shame on mechs for being injured."

"Why you—" Knock trailed off with a hiss, his sharp fingers digging into the scanner he had been holding. If Wildrider hadn't giggled at that moment, Victoria was sure that scanner would have been thrown at Mirage. Instead, Knock Out reached behind him to hit Wildrider again, and the mech's cries caused his tense frame to relax. "Of course, the Stunticons are not just any mechs. They are the mechs that purposely beat up each other to end up in my med-bay."

"That's because we miss you so much, Knocky-poo!"

Victoria pursed her lips, and she saw Breakdown do the same as the laughing yellow mech was suddenly rendered unconscious by Knock Out's scanner. Wildrider wiggled on his berth with manic laughter, but Breakdown hushed him before Knock Out could find another projectile.

While this happened, Mirage leaned down to Victoria again. "Throwing objects in fits of annoyances seems to be another part of medical programming. Alas, Knock Out lacks Ratchet's finesse."

"Get out!" Knock Out pointed towards the door "Megatron said this was my med-bay, and I'm in charge in here, and I want your pompous, Autobot aft out!"

"I was merely coming to inquire if you are in need of a new assistant." Victoria yelped when she was shoved forwards. She took a stumbling step back when Knock Out glared at her. "Pixel is now ready to fully integrate with the crew, and she is in need of a proper work schedule."

Knock Out's glare transferred to Victoria, and the femme felt a heat rush through her frame at the sneer of disgust on the medic's face. "Like I would want a _noble_ wandering around my med-bay all cycle."

"I've got a place you can go." The twisting heat in her chest cooled, and Victoria took a step back in response to the grin Wildrider gave her. Mirage stepped slightly in front of her when the black and red mech patted the berth he was on. "My berth is _always_ open, sweetspark."

Mirage pushed Victoria towards the door when Wildrider began to cackle. Victoria hurried out of the med-bay, nearly running into the red mech on the other side of the door. Dull yellow optics glowed down at her, and she shuffled to the side when Mirage urged her to. The mech only spared them one more glance before he sighed and stepped into the med-bay. "I told you Drag Strip would be the next to go."

Victoria felt her spark jump at the dead voice, but the mech quickly vanished when the door shut between them. She hesitated for a moment before she followed Mirage, who was already walking towards their next destination. "What was that about?"

"A guilty pleasure of mine." Mirage stopped long enough for Victoria to catch up and wrapped his arm around hers before continuing. "I enjoy teasing Knock Out. Though, I do apologize for the Stunticons—Wildrider in particular. Breakdown is the sanest of the group, and I often forget that sanity does not extend to the others. While I am forcing you to interact outside of your hab-suite, do not approach one of the Stunticons without company."

"I thought I was safe on the ship."

"For the most part you are, but it would not do you any harm to have an Autobot accompany you around the Decepticons." Mirage waved his hand in front of them. "Enough of that. It is time we became serious with our endeavors."

Victoria hummed at the mech's monotone enthusiasm and glanced around the hallway. Her visor lit up with familiar textboxes pointing her in the direction of the emergency exits and call buttons. The tension from her second encounter of the day slowly began to ebb, and her spark became comfortably quiet again.

"So, where to next?" Victoria paused when Mirage shifted their direction. She dug her heels into the ground and stared down the ten harmless steps they encountered. "The ship has a second floor?"

"Technically, we are on the third floor, but yes, it does." Mirage tugged on her arm, but Victoria dug her heels in even more. Mirage vented. "Have you suddenly developed a fear of stairs now?"

"I didn't wear heels as a human for a reason."

"And why would that be important now?"

Victoria opened her mouth to retort until she noticed the genuine confusion in Mirage's brightened optics. During her first few days of stumbling, Mirage had been patient with her, telling Patronus to help her figure out her new center of gravity while he sat politely stone-faced. Once she had figured out how to walk without leaning because of the wheels on her back, Mirage had moved to other lessons. Nothing had ever been said about the shape of her feet unless she was one complaining about them.

Stilettos on the frame of a Cybertronian were just as normal flats.

Victoria still hesitated. "My depth perception is still off."

"I promise not to allow you to face plant at the bottom of the stairs."

The femme shot the expressionless mech a tight grin and stepped down on to the first stair. She nearly overstepped the edge of the ledge and squeezed Mirage's arm tightly. After a short fumble on the second step, Victoria's fear of reenacting the painful fall that had forever scarred her from heels as a human faded, and her spark briefly whirled in her chest when she reached the last step.

Mirage shook his head at the proud smile she gave him now. "I'm starting to realize that humans were much stranger than I originally believed."

"_Well_, we can't all have built in heels from birth…or creation." As if on cue, Victoria felt her ankle give out beneath her and stumbled before Mirage could catch her. She jerked back up, and the loose armor on her frame shuddered without her consent. "Right, now, where were again?"

"Going into the bowels of the ship where no mech returns from."

"Someone definitely spat in your Energon this morning."

"Hi!"

Victoria jumped at the sudden greeting. She glanced around for the owner of the voice, and her visor performed a quick reboot at her conscious demand when she saw no one. A nudge in the side from Mirage had her glancing at him, and his subtle nod in front of them prompted her to look down. After meeting a few of the mechs onboard, Skyfire especially, Victoria had been convinced that she was the tiniest person on board the ship, but now she stood heavily corrected.

The blue and white mech that stood before her barely reached the top of her thigh. The red mask he wore concealed any face he may have had, but the bright blue visor above it sparkled with a mischievous air that reminded her of all of the previous Cassettes she had known. She found herself so fascinated by the red strip of lights that flashed in a constant loop on his shoulder guards that it took Mirage subtly elbowing her again for her to respond to the previous greeting. "Hi…"

"Wow, you are shy, aren't you?" the mech questioned, though he didn't seem to need an answer as he reached up to press the tips of his fingers against hers. Victoria tensed when she felt a faint shock pass between them instead of the handshake she was accustomed to. He immediately withdrew, ignoring the visible change in her posture. "I'm Rewind. You ever have any questions—any at all—feel free to come and see me. If I don't have the answer, then I can easily look it up."

"Rewind has collected a very vast database of information," Mirage expanded. Victoria nodded and attempted to relax the sparse armor that had clamped down from Rewind's surprise greeting. She felt her spark flutter and attempted to calm that as well. "Most of which come in the form of videos. He has been known to record practically anything he encounters."

"Who's to say that I won't record the one event that shapes history to come," Rewind teased. He tapped the side of his helm, and Victoria stared at the blinking red light mounted there. "I'm an archivist by spark. Recording is the one function that makes me feel…whole. Besides, I don't record _everything_ I've collected over the eons. Some of it comes from databases I've encountered during my travels—before _and_ after the war. That's why I wanted to return to Cybertron—to find the fabled _Vector Sigma_."

Victoria started, not because of the way Rewind dramatically wiggled his fingers but because of the familiarity of the name. Her spark began to jump more sporadically, and she placed a hand over her chest as if to keep it from jumping out. "Vector Sigma?"

"Yep! Before the war, there was a myth that Vector Sigma existed at the very core of the planet, recording everything that's happened since the very instant Cybertron was formed." Rewind lifted his hands in the semblance of a shrug. "No one's actually _seen_ Vector Sigma though, hence the myth part of it. But if there really _is_ a giant database at the center of Cybertron—collecting every little bit of information as it happens—just imagine what it could offer! It could solve the very war."

"I highly doubt that," Mirage said with a tight frown. "The war was created through our own mistakes and will only find its resolution when we do."

Rewind gave another hand shrug and abruptly reached out to take Victoria's hand. Victoria tensed in preparation of receiving another shock, but it never came as Rewind led her down the long hallway, like a child leading his parent. "Enough of that though. Skyfire was saying how you two met almost a deca-cycle ago, but have you met anyone else? Blaster? Chromedome? Heck, Breakdown's lot of maniacs?"

"The Stunticons? Yes." Victoria paused. She had to focus more on not falling forward because of her stooped walk rather than chatting. "I haven't really left my room..."

A visor flashed up at her in surprise, and Rewind nearly doubled his pace. Victoria stumbled before she regained her footing. "That's horrible! I can't even stay in my suite for a joor before needing to get out. Even when Eject or Blaster is present, it's like some kind of torture."

Rewind went on about the boredom that the habitat suites inspired. The monologue was nearly similar to Bluestreak's manner of speech, but Rewind's babble—shifting topics from the personal rooms on the ship to the origins of the ship's name—was vastly different from Bluestreak. It somehow lacked the precisely cheerful inflection of words along with the natural flow of changing topics that the Praxian had mastered…

Victoria shook her head when she felt a familiar sensation in her spark, like a constant bee sting. She forced her mind away from the memories, refusing to acknowledge the messages that were prompting her to visit memory lane, and focused on the little mech that guided her and how not to trip. He looked back once, as if to make sure she hadn't escaped his grasp, and came to a stop in front of a large, reinforced door. "Here we go!"

Rewind reached up to tap the keypad beside the door, and Victoria glanced behind her to check on Mirage, who had become strangely silent. The magical target symbol on her visor went crazy in an attempt to focus on something that wasn't there, and she could hear the vents on her helm hum louder.

That _jerk_! The first time he forced her to leave the hab-suite and "socialize," and he abandoned her to figure out how to handle these mechs on her own. What if she fumbled the story? Missed some social cue? What if she accidentally accepted a proposal of marriage? Why hadn't Mirage told her if Cybertronians got married? No one ever explained anything like that to her in proper detail!

Fortunately, she never had to encounter that problem. The instant the door opened, Victoria found herself flat on her back. She heard the sound of something bang against the wall behind her, but she was too focused on the large frame that was now weighing her down.

A yellow visor flashed down at her. The mech dismissed her in the same instant and twisted around to face the room he had just flown out of. "_Great_. At least now we don't have to worry about dying at the hands of the Decepticons on board. You've got that _completely_ covered."

"I'm marking that as a success whether you like it or not."

The mech on top of her grunted, and Victoria took a brief moment to stare at the oddly shaped finials that fanned out on either side of the golden visor. They almost looked like cat ears to her…

"Um, Chromedome?" Cat Ears tilted his head to the side, but Victoria could only stare up at the new mech that crushed her beneath his frame. "You might wanna get up before things turn a little awkward…unless of course, Pixel doesn't mind being squished into the floor. I hear some femmes are into that."

The masked face above her titled down to look at her. Victoria unconsciously "blinked" at how swiftly the weight was lifted from her chest and only felt mildly offended by the huff she could hear from the mech. Rewind appeared in her line of sight, and she frowned when she saw the little red light on the side of his head was still on. "Are you all right?"

"Of course it's fine!"

Rewind ducked back, and Victoria yelped when someone grabbed her arm and yanked her up without warning. She flinched back the moment she had gained her balance, and her arms momentarily flailed to keep from falling back down. The new masked face followed her, and she briefly wondered if masks were more of a fashion statement than she had previously thought.

"See? It can stand and everything." Victoria's spark nearly stopped when the mech patted the top of her head. Her fans began to hum louder, and her hands clenched when the patting turned into a hand tilting her head in every direction. "It's so tiny, but not as tiny as a Cassette. Mini-Bot? Haven't seen one of those in a while…"

"_She_, Brainstorm." Victoria decided that she would have to thank Rewind later when she wasn't fighting to keep herself from biting the finger that had stopped under her chin to tilt her head far back. Otherwise, she would have corrected touchy mech. "_Her_ name is Pixel, and _she _is Mirage's friend we saved in the Lilivuvian Quadrant. Remember?"

"Nope." Victoria finally slapped the hand away when it began to poke at the projections on the side of her helm. Her optic band brightened when the blue-green mech straightened, standing nearly three heads above her. The wings on his back slightly moved back and forth while he stared down at her. "Ever held a moleculon missile launcher?"

Victoria gaped at the mech, and Rewind slapped his forehead down beside her. "No."

"Neither has any other mech because _I _am the only one smart enough to invent one small enough for a mech to handle. Wanna be the first to—"

"No." Brainstorm's yellow optics winked, but Victoria continued to frown. "You're the mech the announcements warn about every morning."

Rewind chuckled, and there was even a burst of static from the yellow and orange mech that had retreated back into the room. "Your reputation precedes you, Brainstorm."

"As it should." Brainstorm gave Victoria another glance and turned to reenter the room with Chromedome. He grabbed a data-pad hidden amidst the piles of junk on one of the tables and collapsed into a nearby chair. Chromedome sighed when Brainstorm scooted his chair closer to where he sat and propped his feet in the cat-eared mech's lap. "On to the next success story."

Rewind laughed and trotted into the room to join them. Victoria remained standing in the doorway; her frame was tense as Rewind began a friendly conversation with Chromedome while Brainstorm tapped away at his data-pad.

It looked so…_normal_. Even what she had encountered in the med-bay earlier had an air of normalcy to it. None of it was what she had expected when Mirage had dragged her away from Patronus—from her _routine_. These mechs were at as much ease as her lot back on Earth.

Victoria flinched and lifted her hand to cover her spark. A sharp pain had begun in the center of her chassis, and she clenched her dentae when the room in front of her swirled with various colors. A near silent whisper graced her audials as Brainstorm, Chromedome, and Rewind were replaced with other figures in a more decadent lounge. She immediately recognized Vector Prime, who loudly laughed with Solus and a mech in the shape of a large mechanical beast she couldn't name.

Her attention was pulled away and forced to focus on two other mechs that were huddled in the corner of the room, speaking to each other in low voices. The larger mech was bent down to listen to the other, and it was the smaller mech that they focused more on. A buzz began to hum in their audials, but their attention wouldn't sway from the mech that loosely gestured towards the other three Primes until everything surrounding the mech began to blur…

A sharp sting jerked Victoria to the side, and a dull throb in her left side registered a few seconds later. Red symbols flashed in her vision, a few of which she recognized as warnings for overheating, and they distracted her from the fact that her vision was completely black. The silent whisper hissed, and the pain in her chest began to ebb. As the whisper retreated, Victoria was assaulted by the loud voices around her and tried not to flinch at the sudden loudness.

"That is not how you get someone's attention, Brainstorm!"

"And dainty little pokes to the knee works any better? At least _my_ way got a reaction. It's not my fault it started malfunctioning."

"_Her_—you act like femmes are drones!"

"They're not? Oh, hey! Our Energon is finally here."

Victoria let her frame stay limp on the floor as the voices continued. She could feel the light vibrations of the ship along her side, and it served remarkably well to ease the nausea she felt now. A new text box popped up on her visor, and she dismissed it without even attempting to decipher the command. The vibrations grew more as the mechs moved around her, and she was perfectly content to lie there until she didn't feel the urge to throw up.

"What in the name of the AllSpark is going on here?" Victoria frowned at the familiar voice. The vibrations were accompanied by the dull clang of metal feet, and her nausea had nearly subsided when a large hand fell on her head. "Pixel? What happened to her?"

"I think it has a glitch."

Victoria finally activated her visor, and she could dimly see Brainstorm stooping down to pick up one of the three cubes of Energon that had appeared beside her. Rewind's smaller helm appeared to her left, the bright red light on the side of head no longer on, and Skyfire knelt beside her. Her vision gradually sharpened as Skyfire moved the hand on her head to help her sit up.

Brainstorm tilted his cube towards her before turning away. "See? I told you a little whack would set it back on track."

Rewind gave a tiny growl, but he let the mech disappear back into the room without a word. He turned back to Victoria and Skyfire, who was carefully helping her stand up. "What was that about? I thought I was going to have to comm. Mirage and tell him I had already broken his friend."

"I'm fine," Victoria insisted. However, she didn't protest when Skyfire kept a hand between her wheels to help steady her. "Just a little…glitch. Like Brainstorm said."

Rewind released a loud vent, and Skyfire looked down at her with bright aquamarine optics. "Are you sure? You were completely unresponsive for a while there. It would also do Brainstorm's ego some good if he was wrong."

Victoria smiled at Rewind's hushed statement. The pain in her spark had vanished now, leaving it to thrum at the normal pace it did, and her vision had completely returned to normal. "I'm sure. It's just something that happens now."

Rewind nodded, but he stayed beside her instead of returning to the conversation he had been having before her apparent disconnect from reality. Skyfire also continued to stand beside her even after bending down long enough to grab the cubes of Energon on the floor. "If you insist you're fine, I won't force you to go see Knock Out. He looked like he had his hands full with his Stunticons when I walked by the med-bay."

"But Brainstorm dented her cheek-plate."

Victoria lifted her hand to rub the side of her face that still stung. She winced when she felt the shallow dent, the sting becoming more pronounced when her fingers grazed it. She had never known that robotic alien frames could be so sensitive to pain. If a small dent could make her flinch, how had the mechs been able to take having a limb being ripped off?

"I know enough to repair a simple dent." Skyfire guided Victoria into the room, and Rewind followed at their heels. "It'll take less than a breem. Then you can explain what you're doing all the way down here in the labs because I doubt Mirage would send you down here for a data-pad."

Victoria sat down in the large chair Skyfire directed her towards and silently listened to Rewind recount the first time he had been in Knock Out's med-bay. It wasn't until the tiny mech gestured to the side with a laugh that Victoria remembered the final, quiet mech in the room. She tensed when she found him staring directly at her, yellow visor opaque and mask hiding any expression. He continued to stare until Skyfire returned and stepped between them.

**~III~**

The soft click of her heels against the floor created an almost soothing pattern, and Victoria fought the urge to find a place to sit down for a while. Her day of forced socializing had been the busiest she had since being dropped into her new role. She still wanted to tell Mirage and thing or two about abandoning her to fend for herself, but the initial anger had ebbed throughout the day.

After Skyfire had fixed her cheek, she had spent a while in the labs making small talk with Skyfire and Rewind (or mostly listening to Rewind talk). Chromedome's strange staring had kept her a little tense, but Rewind had eventually drawn him into the conversation, and he had concentrated more on responding to the tiny mech than burning a hole in the side of her head with his visor.

Their relaxing time in the labs had come to a dramatic end when Brainstorm had casually commented on the live warhead he was tinkering with in his free time. Rewind had immediately remembered his promise to Mirage on introducing Victoria to the remaining crew, which Victoria was still attempting to figure _when_ the little mech had made that promise. He had dragged her out of the labs after a series of farewells from Skyfire, who had promised to try and find something for her to do as an assistant in the lab.

Victoria sincerely hoped he didn't find anything.

Chromedome had followed her and Rewind on their mini adventure through the _Altair_. Victoria had glanced behind her to see him staring on various occasions, but she had thankfully been distracted from him for the majority of the trip while Rewind introduced her to a few of the members of the sparse crew.

They had traveled down to the rec-room first where they encountered a mech named Nightbeat, who had introduced himself as the ship's head of security. Victoria had smiled at his exasperated tale of tracking down the mech who had sabotaged the Energon dispenser in the labs. The next mech they found was a massive Seeker by the name of Dreadwing. Rewind hadn't stopped for very long when pointing him out, and Dreadwing had appeared uninterested in conversation as he walked right past them. The Stunticons had received a second introduction from a safe distant, with Rewind pointing out who was who while Drag Strip and Wildrider harassed the morose Dead End. Rewind had laughed when Victoria had asked about being introduced to a cleaning drone, and Chromedome's unyielding stare had darkened.

After that embarrassing mishap, the miniature archivist had moved on to an overall tour of the ship. Victoria had been surprised by how big the _Altair_ was. While Rewind insisted on it being a relatively small ship compared to others, it still consisted of four levels—the first and lowest level containing the rec-room and various storage rooms, the second being mostly the labs and training rooms, the third having the crew's hab-suites and the med-bay, and the fourth encompassing the command deck. Victoria had the impression that the explanation of what was on some of the floors consisted of more than just that, but she was supposed to know what those broad terms meant.

Their long journey around the ship came to an end when Rewind received a private comm. from his Cassette deck. He had happily bid her and Chromedome farewell before running off. Victoria had shuffled in place, fingers fiddling with the plating on her thighs, until Chromedome had turned and walked away without a word. Now, she was left alone to wander the ship and figure out which way was the direction back to her hab-suite. All she knew was that Rewind had left her on the second floor and the stairs were near the labs, whichever direction that was.

Victoria vented when she saw the hallway softly turn ahead of her. Wonderful—she had walked in the exact opposite direction she needed to. Now she would have to trek all the way to the other end of the ship.

A loud clang of metal made her pause in turning around. Her visor brightened when the sound repeated followed by a series of screeches and more clangs. Instead of returning to her initial destination, Victoria continued around the bend to find a series of doors that Rewind had not explained before being called away. The noise became louder when Victoria approached the door at the far end of the hallway.

The large door hissed open with a simple press of a button, and Victoria stared into the large room. The incessant clanging drew her gaze to the edge of the room, and her spark completely stopped when she spotted two mechs clashing together.

Patronus ducked to the side to avoid a swinging fist, but a knee came up to connect with his abdomen beneath his cockpit. Victoria winced, and her hands gripped the edge of the door when Patronus stumbled a few feet only to be grabbed by his wings and thrown across the room. The younger mech barely had time to climb to his hands and knees before a giant foot crashed down between his wings, crushing him into the floor. The sound his armor screeching across the floor made Victoria flinch.

"You focus too much on dodging one strike and leave yourself open to another. Now, get up and do it again."

The harsh, grating voice sent a cold shudder through her spark, and Victoria's visor blared with messages as she stared at the large grey mech standing above her sparkling bodyguard. Neither had looked in her direction yet, but Victoria still felt the loose armor on her body shake when Patronus' dented wings trembled. "I can't—"

Victoria jerked away from the door before she could see Megatron kick the downed mech. She still flinched at the loud sound it made and was tempted to cover the sides of her head when it continued. Her pace quickened into a run before she even realized it, and she only stumbled a few times as she attempted to escape the scene she had just witnessed.

_That_ was the "training" her Toshi had been doing for the past three weeks? Being beaten to a bloody pulp—dented and scraped and attacked when he was completely defenseless? How had he hidden all of that from her? Why hadn't she put a stop to it earlier? Why had she _ran away_ when he had obviously needed her?

"Ah!"

Victoria yelped when she collided with something. She was knocked into the wall by the force of the collision, and she clutched her right thigh where the brunt of the hit had connected. Her spark was rapidly twisting in her chest, and it spun faster when she glanced down at what she had hit.

"Rewind!" Victoria shoved herself off the wall and knelt down where the tiny mech lay face down on the ground. The thought of Patronus suffering back in the training room under Megatron still made her spark twist with a chill, but she could only help the little mech she had knocked down. "I'm so sorry; I wasn't looking where I was going."

The little mech groaned when Victoria carefully rolled him over, and she gaped at the maskless face and flickering yellow visor. She sat back and realized the little mech was a lighter shade of blue than Rewind had been. Other than that, he looked astonishingly similar to Rewind.

Victoria yelped when the mech suddenly jolted, hand flying in the air with a static filled groan. He twisted on the floor and abruptly went still again, hand falling on his chest and mouth gaping open. Victoria stared until the frame began to wiggle again, and the yellow visor turned to her. "You would have made a good lobbing guard."

The little mech sat up before falling back down with a grunt of pain. Victoria flinched, and the image of Patronus lying on the floor flashed before her eyes. "You're hurt."

"Yes." Victoria grimaced at the plain acknowledgement, and the mech tried to sit up again. "I think I might have dislodged a spinal strut. I can't feel my legs."

Victoria's visor brightened, sharpening the image of the little mech. "I hit you that hard?"

"Cassettes have more delicate frames." He held out his arms towards Victoria, and she stared at him with a brightened visor and tiny frown. "You'll have to carry me to Blaster, so he can fix me."

"Carry…" Victoria trailed off. The little mech was roughly half her height, and she had yet to pick up anything bigger than a data-pad. "Are you sure you can't walk?"

"Are you planning to leave an injured mech to wallow in pain?" The little mech flopped onto his back and lifted an arm to cover his visor. "I guess I shouldn't expect anything else. We hardly know each other. No, I'll just lay here until my brother stumbles upon me."

Victoria's frown deepened. Her twisting spark was slowly calming, but the reminder of her already abandoning the sparkling she knew made it twist again. "I didn't mean to make it seem like I was abandoning you. I just—"

"That's great!" Victoria grunted when the little mech jumped into her arms. He wiggled his upper half to get closer and threw his arms around her neck. His yellow visor peeked out from beneath her chin, and he smiled. "Let's go."

Victoria staggered to her feet, holding the Cassette close in an attempt to keep him from falling. With one hand under his unmoving legs and the other awkwardly wrapped beneath his arms, Victoria began to sway in the direction he pointed. He set the course to an elevator that was roughly in the middle of the hallway and reached out to tap the top button when they entered it. He hummed along with the odd music and snuggled up beneath her chin while she attempted to keep her balance in the moving space.

The door dinged open, and he pointed at a door not far from them. "There! Blaster should still be in the communications suite."

Victoria nodded and walked towards the door. She paused, expecting the little mech to open the door for her, but instead he reached out to thwack the door with one tiny hand. "Blaster! I've been mortally wounded—mech down!"

The door slid open, and the mech waved down at the yellow feline that stood there. "Steeljaw, I'm tagging you in!"

Steeljaw gave a huff and trotted back into the dim room. The feline curled up beside another red, four-legged beast and completely ignored the little mech calling for him. Not receiving another response from Steeljaw, the Cassette turned towards the brightest source of light in the room. Rewind stared at them from where he stood beside a larger orange and yellow mech that sat in front of a large console.

Rewind titled his head to the side. "Eject, what are you doing?"

"Suffering internal bleeding." Victoria grunted when Eject wiggled in her arms. "And a broken spinal strut. Looks like I'll just have to take a few joors off to get better."

Rewind shook his head, and the larger mech released a deep laugh. "This your version o' rebellin', li'l mech?"

The mech sounded astonishingly similar to Jazz, and Victoria briefly wondered why the two mechs were the only ones she had ever heard such thick accents from. She didn't have long to think on that when Eject began to wiggle again. "_Me_? Why would I ever rebel against an amazing Cassette Deck like you? You're the best there ever was, Blaster."

The orange mech laughed again, and a click sounded before the front part of his chest slightly opened. "A'ight, I'll give ya some off time."

Eject, who had seemed ready to jump from Victoria's arms the moment he could, threw his arms back around her neck and hung on to her tightly. "You didn't make Rewind go back inside when _he_ got injured!"

"But you're just _so_ hurt." Rewind chuckled and leaned against Blaster's foot. "You _obviously_ need a full rest fo' the next megacycle."

Eject mumbled against Victoria's neck before he jumped out of her arms. She watched in fascination as he agilely transformed in the air before smoothly sliding into Blaster's open chest. There was silence after Blaster's chest closed, and Victoria realized that both mechs were staring at her while she still stared at Blaster's chest. A burst of hot air escaped her vents, and she jerked her head to look at the wall. Had she just committed another unknown Transformer faux pas—staring too long at a Cassette Deck's chest?

"So." Blaster dragged out the word long enough for Victoria turn back towards him. He patted the top of Rewind's head while the Cassette fiddled with his tiny head camera. "Rewind here was tellin' me how you were lookin' for a spot on the work roster."

Victoria nodded. "Mirage is making me do it."

Blaster released another loud laugh, making the red beast in the corner huff. "I've learned that Mirage is a pretty rigorous mech when he wants to be. Every Autobot on board got recruited fo' _very_ specific positions."

"I can imagine."

Blaster laughed once more, and Victoria began to relax. His behavior was so similar to Jazz's that for a moment Victoria could pretend he was another familiar mech. Rewind rapped his knuckles against Blaster's leg, and Blaster calmed down. "Well, how would you like to help us up here in communications?"

"Oh, that—"

"Would be an excellent idea."

Victoria jumped and spun around. Mirage grabbed her hand before her sudden shift in position could tip her over. He waited until she had stabilized and released her. "Skyfire has suggested an apprenticeship in the labs, but Brainstorm's…unordinary practices present a high risk situation. Communications will certainly keep you busy throughout the cycle while Patronus is training."

Victoria frowned at the reminder of Patronus' "training." "Speaking of that—"

"Until Patronus says otherwise, he has chosen to remain under Megatron's tutelage."

The femme's mouth snapped closed, and her visor flashed along with her jumping spark. Mirage stared back with passive golden optics until Victoria looked away. Blaster shifted in his seat behind them and released a whistle. "Well, if you're workin' in here, ya gotta be up and in here before the others are moving. News don't wait for any mech…or femme."

Victoria nodded, and Blaster spun around in his chair to tap at the console. Rewind waved at her, and she waved back as Mirage gestured for her to follow him. The door slid close behind them, and Victoria stopped to face the noble mech, straightening her spine and crossing her arms over her chest. "He _cannot_ continue training under…under that brute."

Mirage stared at her; his posture remained open with his arms hanging by his sides and feet spread apart. "Megatron is currently the only one available to dedicate the time to training Patronus to his full potential."

"Oh, that's bull, and you know it!" Mirage tensed and glanced behind her at the door they stood in front of. Victoria couldn't find the motivation to care if they were overheard. "If I'm going to be stuck in here all day now that leaves you with a completely open schedule, not to mention some of the mechs I saw just wandering around the ship today. Heck, _Chromedome_ could train him if all he does is stare at people!"

Victoria forced every glowing red circle on her visor focus solely on Mirage's face, and she finally felt like she had mastered her new glare when he leaned back a little. Her moment of power only lasted briefly as he straightened and glared back. "Allow me to correct myself: Megatron is the _only_ _mech on this ship_ who is capable of training a Prime. His strength matches that of a Prime's, and he is capable of teaching Patronus things that another warrior cannot. That is why he was brought here."

Mirage's hard optics softened, and Victoria tried not to be swayed from her glare. "I know what you saw has you worried, but trust me, I have given Patronus very strict instructions to come to me if Megatron steps out of bounds. I also keep a very close optic on their training sessions. If anything were to happen, I would step in to stop it."

Mirage reached out to place a hand on her shoulder, and Victoria tried not to relax underneath it. She struggled to hold on to her anger, attempting to ignore the soothing circles Mirage made with his thumb on her shoulder pad. "I never wanted to see him become involved in this war."

"I am sure you did not." Mirage's hand lifted from her shoulder and hovered beside her head. He let it drop to his side. "For the record, I despise having to drag new mechs into this endless cycle of violence."

Victoria nodded and accepted the crooked arm Mirage offered. She let him guide her towards the elevator, feeling her shoulders sag. She stood beside him as they waited for the elevator to arrive. "I haven't forgotten how you just abandoned me today."

"I never _abandoned _you. I simply entrusted your welfare in another, trusted Autobot."

Victoria almost smiled.

**~III~**

She was floating again in the now familiar and even calming darkness. Numerous orbs of light danced around the edges of her prison, wispy strands of green, yellow, orange, and blue tickling the invisible boundary between them. She drifted around the space and touched each barrier with a tentative hand. Each one held strong under her touch, even the scratched wall separating Sunstreaker's bright golden threads connected to his bright spark.

A brief smile appeared when she saw his spark still connected with the identical spark beside him before she moved on. She stopped in front of one of the sparks and placed both hands against the barrier. The bright, green strand that had been viciously attacking the barrier stilled. It almost seemed to caress the places where her hands rested before mindlessly attacking the wall again.

She sighed and leaned her head against the invisible wall. The cold barrier made her fingers curl into fists, and she turned her head to rest her cheek against it. The tendrils paused to touch the exact place her cheek lay and continued the assault with renewed vigor.

She hummed, and her spark felt empty. "I miss you too, Blue."

* * *

**AN: **Now we know the majority of everybody with Victoria :D For anyone who reads the MTMTE comics (which is where I was inspired to include some of the mechs on board...), I want to go ahead and say that A) I'm not 100% caught up with the comics, so don't expect anything beyond certain characters popping up, and B) Chromedome and Rewind are NOT a couple in this story; I always hate splitting canon couples (because they're _canon_, and I don't normally like separating canon couples...because they're canon), but I considered the fact that Rewind is a symbiotic Cassette with Blaster, which kinda destroys the very history of their relationship, and decided that a romantic relationship between them wouldn't work out in this story :/ Besides, there's nothing wrong with some strong friendships :)

Anyway, like I said in the top AN, summer has begun, and I'm aiming to start posting on a much more regular basis. I want to try to get into the groove of posting a chapter each week, but I think bi-weekly updates are a more realistic goal right now, especially considering the massive length the chapters usually end up being. Either way, Mondays will be definite update days until further notice, so if you're looking for a new chapter, look for it on Mondays ;)

Until next update :D


	3. The Company You Keep - Bluestreak

**AN:** *le gasp* Chapter 2 is finally here! I wish I had a viable excuse for my lengthy absence once again, but it's not :/ All you need to know is that I was very suddenly sucked into the black hole of what is _Mass Effect_ and have only just in the past week managed to pull myself out of it (so many endless hours of gaming *twitch*). At least it was only a month between updates; that's a good sign, right? ^_^;

Time Units  
Breem: 8.3 Minutes

"_Thinking"_  
_:Comm. Talk:  
_**~Bond Speech~**

* * *

Rise

Chapter Two

The Company You Keep

* * *

Bluestreak knew what state the med-bay was in the moment he stepped into the hangar. He kept his hands carefully cupped around the three eager sparklings and listened to the litany of curses coming from Ratchet across the room. Each curse was punctuated by the sound of metal falling into a small container beside him.

"—even have a slagging processer!" The black coated vocal fins on either side of Wheeljack's head remained dull while Ratchet removed a large sliver of metal from the engineer's blast mask with a jerk of his hand. "Mixing the humans' gunpowder with Energon—how did that sound like a good idea, Wheeljack? Explosions coming from you are hardly a surprise now, but you're not _careless_ when it comes to them."

Wheeljack's optics remained fixed on a point above the grumbling medic's head, but his head snapped towards Bluestreak when an impatient sparkling squeaked. His dark optics lit up, and Bluestreak crossed the room when Wheeljack gestured for him. Ratchet shook his head when the squeaking sparklings became louder, and he stepped away with his tools for the Dinobots to be passed to the engineer.

Snarl flopped onto Wheeljack's unscathed thigh, stretching his short limbs as far as they would go and rubbing his face against Wheeljack's armor. Grimlock clambered halfway up Wheeljack's chest before the engineer caught him and gently placed the sparkling back in his lap. Swoop ignored his brother's second attempt to climb up their creator and placed his tiny hand on Wheeljack's other mangled hand. "Why you do so many explosions?"

"Isn't that the question of the hour?" Ratchet snorted and shoved aside the container he had been tossing metal fragments into when Grimlock's ambitious endeavors nearly landed him inside it. The chartreuse medic pointed a finger at Wheeljack, and Bluestreak almost smiled when Wheeljack physically flinched away from it. It almost made the scene feel more like the good old days. "Optimus needs to speak with me now, but I'll send First Aid to finish digging these fragments out and start the repairs on your arm. Bluestreak, keep him on this berth."

Bluestreak nodded, and his door-wings remained flared behind him until the medic exited the hangar. His posture relaxed, and he turned back to Wheeljack, wincing when he finally had a good look at the damage. "You really sent a lot of humans running when your explosion set the alarms off. We almost thought it was a Decepticon attack."

"Whoops." Snarl giggled when Swoop smacked his tiny wrench against Wheeljack's abdomen. Wheeljack's facial fins flickered with a chuckle, and he used a finger on his working hand to pet the Dinobot medic's bright red crest. "You think they'd be used to it by now."

"Getting used to your explosions is even more dangerous."

Bluestreak's smile fell when Wheeljack's response was a sigh. The engineer submitted to Swoop's medical examination, and Grimlock began to head butt Wheeljack's abdomen. "Me Grimlock tired of sparkling hangar! It _boring_! Wanna be with you."

Snarl made a noise from where he laid and sat up while Wheeljack poked Grimlock in the chest. "I thought you were having fun with Bulkhead and Jazz. I heard you even painted Ravage a nice shade of blue last week."

Swoop paused his examination when Grimlock whined and latched onto the finger poking him. "Wanna be with you! You not explode as much when we with you."

Snarl jumped up and latched onto the same finger with a sparkling click. Bluestreak glanced down at Swoop, who fiddled with his little wrench, and tried to ignore the brief stutter from Wheeljack's chest. "I've gotta go. Prowl scheduled me for surveillance duty, so…"

Bluestreak trailed off and took a step towards the door. He knew that Wheeljack and the little Dinobots had already dismissed him when the engineer scooped up the two whining mechlings and their grim brother with his uninjured hand. He held them close to his chest with a rumbling hum, and Bluestreak quickly left the hangar.

Outside the hangar, the Diego Garcia base was already up and running in the faint light of the morning. Even without Wheeljack's startling wakeup call on that particular morning, the human occupants of the base were usually awake at this time and preparing for the day. However, only the senior members of NEST ventured close to the Autobots' designated area of Diego Garcia, and the majority avoided the path Bluestreak took from the medical hangar to the sparkling hangar.

The Praxian paused outside the hangar and listened to the high-pitched voice that babbled in a mixture of broken English, Cybertronian, and clicks and whistles. He smiled when he managed to decipher the strange new language. "—and Nu-Nu be my kitty 'cause 'Hide say so, an' Ravage be Beaky's kitty, but Nu-Nu better 'cause he give piggy back rides. An' Jazz play hide-and-find! He hide—I find—I win! He never find me."

Bluestreak smiled when the English/Cybertronian speech was broken by a series of clicks, and he could picture Recall animatedly waving his arms around to emphasize his whistles while Topaz huffed and maybe even threw one of her blocks at the mechling if he continued for too long. A high-pitched screech pierced through the babbling, and Bluestreak's small smile fell. He took a step back from the doors and set a course for a hangar further down the row.

No one he knew of had ever been able to master Starscream's signature screech—not when he had still been the Decepticon's feared Second-in-Command or when he had been placed in the sparkling form of Star. The last thing Bluestreak wanted this early in the morning was the inevitable confrontation he would run into with Star and his ever present babysitter, Skywarp. Bulkhead was the one on sparking duty that day, and Bluestreak was confident the former Wrecker would keep his sparklings safe while the Seekers were present. He could keep the peace with the two Seekers because it made the little Pretender happy.

_:Bluestreak!:_

Bluestreak shook his head and focused on the hangar he walked towards. _:Yes, Red Alert?:_

_:You're late.:_

The younger mech vented, feeling his shoulders and door-wings drop, and two human soldiers snickered when they passed him. Their casual stride hinted of long experience around towering metal aliens, and all experienced humans had figured out when Red Alert was calling. The mech hadn't even on Earth for more than three months, and the humans knew him better than any other Autobot with the exception of Optimus.

_:I'm coming. I just had to stop by the medical hangar and drop off the Dinobots. You know, because Wheeljack made himself explode again and needed some sparkling cuddles?:_

Red Alert didn't respond until Bluestreak was halfway across the compound. _:I need more cameras in that area.:_

_:Red—:_

Bluestreak yelped when one of his door-wings was yanked to the side. He stumbled between the two hangars that the Autobots used as their "personal quarters," and his door-wings erratically fluttered against the wall he was shoved against. He cycled through optic settings until the silver and gold blurs in front of him came into focus.

Sunstreaker scowled down at him, arms crossed and frame ramrod straight, but Sideswipe wore the biggest grin while he rolled back and forth on his wheeled feet. "S'up Blue?"

Bluestreak's door-wings stilled, and periwinkle optics jumped back and forth between the twins. "Hi, Sides. Sunny."

Sunstreaker's engine growled. Otherwise, he remained quiet as his brother took point in the conversation. "Wha'cha doing?"

"Going to my assigned post." Bluestreak paused and checked his chronometer. He slowly inched himself along the wall before Sideswipe rolled around to block him. "I've got half a breem before Red puts out a base wide alert about my treason."

Sideswipe threw his head and released a roaring laugh. Bluestreak turned to Sunstreaker with brightened optics, but the golden twin remained unmoved even when his brother leaned on his shoulder for feigned support. "Ah, Blue—as funny as always."

"Uh…okay." Bluestreak tried once more to sidestep the front-liners, but the movement caused Sideswipe to mimic and block his path of escape once more. "Sides, I'm serious. I can already hear the widespread bulletin on all open Autobot channels. I know you guys are always getting accused of something by Red, but I'd like to keep my status as the 'innocent one.'"

"Why so serious?" Sideswipe rolled closer and shoved Bluestreak towards Sunstreaker, who had turned away and was headed towards the opposite end of the alley Bluestreak had been yanked into it. Bluestreak only attempted to dig his heels into the concrete until Sideswipe gave him a stronger shove that nearly sent him face first into the ground. "You've been hanging around Prowl too much. Even Jazz says so. Work, work, work—you know, the humans have this saying: All work and no play, make Blue a very boring mech."

Sunstreaker stood at the end of the alley, and his blank expression at the sight of Bluestreak's frantic fluttering door-wings made Bluestreak scowl right back. "Is this supposed to be some intervention?"

"You could say that." They had reached the end of the hangars, and now the front-liners flanked the sharpshooter on either side; Sideswipe threw his arm around Bluestreak's shoulder as if to squelch any lingering desires for escape. "Red just got a message about your sudden transfer to a scouting patrol of three."

"Prowl doesn't like you high jacking his comm. frequency."

"What he doesn't know won't hurt him."

Bluestreak forced himself to relax under Sideswipe's guiding arm, a long vent escaping his frame. Sideswipe grinned at the obvious slump the sharpshooter had adopted, and he shook Bluestreak's shoulders in a comradely fashion. "Like you don't wanna skip out on 'Spazzing Red Time.' When was the last time we just got outta here and had some fun?"

"When we had to explain to Ironhide why Nuisance had seaweed stuck in his armor."

Bluestreak turned to Sunstreaker once more when Sideswipe fell into another fit of laughter. Sunstreaker stared back at him and lengthened his stride when Sideswipe continued to laugh in his exaggerated manner. The entrance to the base was drawing closer, and the few humans milling around it stared at the trio when they approached. Bluestreak groaned. "Okay, okay! You can stop the fake laughter now, but if I get sand in my joints from you kidnapping me…"

"Sunshine's gotta leaf blower just for that."

**~III~**

The island of Diego Garcia was like any other island: a mass of land surrounded by miles and miles of salty water. With land and salty water came sand—sand that easily found its way into places it wasn't supposed to be. For example, between small gaps of armor where it would grind against joints or sensitive sections of protoform.

Bluestreak wasn't all that fond of the tiny beach Sideswipe had kidnapped him to. Sunstreaker had been the one who found it during his first week on Diego Garcia; it was a small strip of beach, hidden away by the thick vegetation where none of the human military or civilian population ventured into. Sunstreaker had found the small piece of silent peace, but it had been Sideswipe who had blabbed the secret to everyone on base. Now, whenever a mech mysteriously "vanished," it was common to assume he had escaped to the sandy white beach.

A smile appeared on Bluestreak's face as he toed the white sand and watched the blue-green waves slowly approach him before retreating again. After Sideswipe had blabbed, Bluestreak and Jazz had brought the sparklings as a way to get them out of the hangar they were forced to stay in. Recall had been dazzled by the sight of the glistening water, and he had spent the majority of the day chasing and being chased by the waves, giggling whenever the water had gently lapped at his feet. It had made Bluestreak laugh as he watched from further away where he dug in the sand to find pieces of seashells for Topaz to coo over.

"See?" Bluestreak turned away from the water to where Sideswipe grinned beside him. The silver mech lightly punched his shoulder. "I told you this was a good idea. A little break never hurt anybody."

"You're acting like I never get one."

"What else am I supposed to think when you're constantly running around the base?" Sideswipe rocked back and forth on his wheels, briefly scowling down at the sand when one didn't find the traction it needed roll. "If you're not doing something for Prowl, or Optimus, or even the humans, you're holed up in the hangar with the sparklings."

"They need me." Bluestreak stared out at the endless distance of water; his door-wings swung down to rest midway down his back. "I don't have the spark to take away one of the only stable they still have."

"And no one's saying you should, Blue. Heck, everyone on base would probably throw a fit if you decided now that you didn't want to play the pseudo-role of a sire." Sideswipe lifted one wheel off the ground and made it spin, sending sand flying behind them. A vicious growl made Bluestreak snicker, and he knew that the sand had hit its target by the wide grin now spread across Sideswipe's face. "But you've also been ignoring _other _important things. Like a handsome silver devil who loves to perform pranks and run for his life when they come back to bite him in the aft."

Bluestreak snickered when a barrage of coconuts sent Sideswipe staggering towards the water with a yelp. He grinned at where Sunstreaker sat hunched over a data-pad beneath the shadow of the trees, and he moved forward to help Sideswipe when his wheels began to sink into the wet sand. "And here I thought I had been paying plenty of attention to Frenzy lately."

The sharpshooter instantly knew when the calming atmosphere of the beach died by the way Sideswipe tensed under his helping hands and the sounds of palm fronds crunching beneath Sunstreaker when the mech stood behind them. When Sideswipe was once more free of the sand, Bluestreak retreated down the beach a few steps and turned to stare at the twins who had converged as one front again. "All right, have at it. An intervention wouldn't be complete without telling me what I'm doing that you don't like."

For once, Sideswipe had no grin to break the tension that had developed between them, and his indigo optics where as cool and opaque as his twin's. Bluestreak toed one of the coconuts Sunstreaker had thrown until the waves caught it and pulled it out into the water. "Seriously—I was just waiting for Prowl to go to you guys. Since the senior officers can't talk sense into me, then who better to give the task to than the comrades I'm closest to? I'll let you guys know that you'll have better luck with the direct approach—I kind of zoned out when Perceptor started listing all the scientific reasons I'm acting 'abnormal.'"

"When you did you become so snarky?"

Bluestreak barked out a laugh in response to Sunstreaker's flat question. Sideswipe shifted from one foot to another, but Sunstreaker's gaze never wavered from the sharpshooter. "I've always been; others just don't expect it from the happy-go-lucky chatterbox. You should've heard me when Tracks kept bugging me to tell him what kind of wax you used."

Sunstreaker scowled at the mention of the other vain mech, and Sideswipe easily stepped in to take over. Bluestreak hummed at the flawless transition—Prowl should have employed the Twins immediately after his talk with Jazz had ended poorly. "So you put together the real reason we forced you out here. But come on—you've got all of us worried to a certain extent."

"I don't see why." Bluestreak felt the urge to pace, and he took it. Sunstreaker leaned to his left, as if to stop Bluestreak from attempting to escape, but he resumed his rigid posture when Bluestreak doubled back and began a short loop. "I'm not doing anything _wrong_, and I'm tired of people acting like I am! I still perform all my Autobot duties like a good little soldier—I don't protest when I'm constantly put on monitor duty with Red or when Optimus needs me on an away mission. I'm taking care of Recall and Topaz to the best of my abilities, and I'm even helping out with the Dinobots while Wheeljack goes through his stuff. Why isn't anyone staging an intervention for him before he finally blows himself into pieces that even Ratchet can't put back together?"

Bluestreak twisted out of his pacing loop to jab his finger towards Sideswipe. His door-wings arched to their full height, but he was still left glaring up at the taller mech. "And you can go back and tell Prowl that if he was really worried about me, he wouldn't be sending everybody else on base to talk sense into me!"

Sideswipe lashed out, knocking Bluestreak's hand away and stepped forward to loom over the shorter mech. Bluestreak kept his door-wings high as dark indigo optics glared down at him. "We're the ones that were worried about you, slagger! You don't think we see through that 'good soldier' act? You've been practically on auto-pilot since the attack! The only time you snap out of it is when you're either around the sparklings or you new 'BFF.' You don't talk to anybody else—you practically don't talk at all unless someone drags it out of you. You avoid anything that's _not_ assigned to you, and the last time you had a proper recharge was when Ratchet sedated you."

The silver mech ended with a angry vent of air, and he stepped back to a more comfortable position. Sunstreaker's hand rested on his brother's shoulder for a moment before he pulled back and focused on Bluestreak. "Prowl didn't tell us to talk to you. We saw the others talk to you, but they don't really understand what happened, and Wheeljack's not in a place where he can talk about it either. We overheard Ironhide talking to Optimus about having a spark-to-spark chat, but we thought it might be better if we got to you first."

Bluestreak remained tense, kibble still arched, fists clenched, and a tight scowl still spread across his face. A few tense seconds passed before his hands unclenched; a few more and his door-wings lost their cutting angle. Sunstreaker continued to silently watch Bluestreak's scowl finally relax, and he shot an unreadable glance at his brother. A sharp pain danced through Bluestreak's spark when he realized they were silently communicating via their spark bond, but he quickly pushed it away when Sunstreaker turned back to him.

"You're not someone we've always called a friend. In fact, I didn't think much of you when we first found you after the fall of Praxus. Still probably wouldn't if Wheeljack's bomb hadn't flung us into forms the size of a human's hand. You were just Sideswipe's occasional lackey who talked too much and a soldier with a good shot."

Sunstreaker paused and silently communicated with Sideswipe again before continuing. "You're one of the last mechs who actually knows _us_, and someone I would grudgingly call a friend. We know the past six months have been hard for you—we thought you needed space to fully comprehend what happened, and we respected that. But we're starting to realize that Soundwave's been taking advantage of the state you're in. You're not grieving like you should be because he's constantly there to distract you from reality. We don't know what you two do every night—no one does, not even Red Alert. But we've seen mechs who have come back from…interrogations by Soundwave. Bluestreak, he isn't known as the Decepticons' leading mech in psychological warfare for no reason."

Bluestreak stared between the two front-liners, door-wings falling completely to rest at their normal height. Sideswipe's optics brightened again, and Sunstreaker remained as unmoved as ever. "You're actually worried that Soundwave's taking advantage of me."

"More like manipulating you to the point where you don't know what's up and what's down."

Sunstreaker added a terse nod to his brother's biting comment. Bluestreak stared at them for a long moment before laughing. Neither of the mechs performing his "intervention" seemed to expect his reaction, and Sideswipe stepped forward to place a hand on the sharpshooter's shaking shoulder. "Blue?"

"That's the _last_ thing you guys should be worried about." Bluestreak's laughter tapered off into a giggle, and he smiled at them. "It's almost funny how you guys always think I can't take care of myself. I sometimes wonder how I ever made it through the beginnings of my Autobot career."

"This isn't a joke, Bluestreak." Sideswipe's hand tightened where it still rested on Bluestreak's shoulders, and Sunstreaker's optics were beginning to dim from his initial surprise. "Soundwave's not a nice little mechling scout; we've seen the end result of his work. And you're acting a lot like some of the mechs that survived it."

Bluestreak's smile suddenly fell, and he glared at Sideswipe. "I have too, Sideswipe, and I'm not acting _anything_ like them. I'm just finally focusing on getting things done instead of trying to be the happy-go-lucky mech everyone expects me to be now. And I'm a little insulted by the insinuation that I can't take care of myself against Soundwave's telepathy—Jazz is the one that trained me against Soundwave's mind games, and if there's anyone who would know how to counteract him, it would be Jazz."

"Jazz would also gladly accept Soundwave into his mind just to send him images of naked aliens to corrupt his processer."

Bluestreak and Sideswipe stood nose to nose, glaring back at each other with unwavering stares. Bluestreak was the first to look away when he felt a cool touch swirl around his feet, and he vented when he saw the water had reached the point of where they stood. "All right, you won't believe me. So what's the point of me telling you guys I'm fine? I'm not about to promise to stop what I'm doing either; I know where my limits are even if you don't think I do. I'll make a compromise though—I'll spend more of my free time with you guys instead of solely with the sparklings or Soundwave. I do realize I'm spending more time with him, but you have to understand that what we're doing is important in the long run."

Sunstreaker made a sound between an engine whine and a human snort. "So important that you won't even tell us what it is."

"Yes." A small smile flitted across Bluestreak's face as the Twins perform the same action, an irritated scowl and shift from one foot to the other. "You guys are worried about my sanity now, but I know for a fact that if I tell you the whole truth, you'll try to commit me to one of those human psych hospitals."

"You realize that doesn't help your case, right Blue?" Bluestreak's smile widened, and Sideswipe finally returned it. Sunstreaker shook his head and transferred his scowl to the salt water draped around his feet. "Fine. Truce, compromise, whatever. You're as stubborn an aft as Prowl, but the less time you spend around Soundwave, the less annoyed we'll be, and the happier everyone else on base will be. But I'm adding to our agreement—you'll watch out for Soundwave and come to us if he starts showing any semblance his 'Con ways again. You might have some weird agreement with him, but that doesn't mean we trust him."

Bluestreak readily nodded, and his door-wings began to freely wiggle again. "That I can do."

"Also, stop sighing so much. You're doing it nearly as much as Victoria used to."

Sunstreaker reacted faster than Bluestreak had ever seen him react off the battlefield; his optics winked, and he missed the moment when Sideswipe went from standing in front of him to frantically scrambling away from the incoming water on his hands and knees. Sunstreaker growled at the water that was splashed on him. "It's called 'tact,' moron. Learn it."

"I'm gonna get rust under my plating now!"

Sideswipe took off towards the trees, shaking the water from his legs and arms as he went, and a moment after he vanished into the vegetation, Bluestreak heard the sounds of him transforming and speeding down the unpaved back road. Bluestreak turned back to Sunstreaker and hurried to catch up to where the mech had moved towards the closure of trees he had been sitting under earlier. "I didn't realize Sideswipe was so spastic about the water."

Sunstreaker made another snorting sound and snatched up the data-pad he had left on the ground. Bluestreak caught a glimpse of a stenciled shoreline before Sunstreaker locked the data-pad and stored it away. "It's not the water—it's the rust. He had a bad rust infection when we were younglings."

Bluestreak nodded when Sunstreaker's explanation went no further, and he followed the golden mech to the mech-made path of stomped shrubs that connected the beach to the road. The silence between them lasted until they had nearly reached the road. "I have to admit, I'm surprise you guys didn't bring her up earlier. That's the first thing everyone has latched onto in their conversations with me."

Sunstreaker glanced over his shoulder, but otherwise remained silent. Bluestreak folded down his door-wings to avoid a low hanging branch. "They usually think it's my denial about her death that's affecting me. They don't even remember Smokescreen, funnily enough. Or everyone else that died. They just want me to understand that she's gone so I can move on."

Bluestreak sidestepped when Sunstreaker stopped short of the tree line. The front-liner turned to stare directly at the sharpshooter, and Bluestreak stared back with an unyielding stare. The staring contest lasted a few seconds before Sunstreaker turned away and stomped towards the road. Bluestreak quickly caught up to him. "You know she's not gone."

"She's dead." Bluestreak hummed, and Sunstreaker turned a vicious glare onto the younger mech. They made it to the road, and Sunstreaker paused. He stared down the road, towards the military base they would return to, and huffed. "It's what happened before she died that bugs me."

Bluestreak silently transformed and drove alongside Sunstreaker on the narrow dirt road.

**~III~**

The sun was low by the time the two mechs arrived at the base. After the long process of being identified at the gate, Sunstreaker immediately headed towards the outdoor "wash racks"—a confusing maze of jerry rigged water hoses and metal pipes—where Sideswipe was frantically scrubbing under his armor. Bluestreak watched Sunstreaker grab his brother's hands and carefully help him rinse before turning away with the intention of visiting the sparklings.

He paused when he saw a mech leaning outside the hangar across the airfield. Thundercracker's ruby optics met his gaze, and the blue Seeker flicked one wing towards Bluestreak. The Autobot glanced around, finding no one but a few humans heading towards the mess hall, and lengthened his stride to reach the former Decepticon.

Thundercracker nodded when Bluestreak leaned against the other side of the door he guarded. "No seaweed today?"

Bluestreak snickered at the question. "Just sand and salt."

"Pity." Bluestreak snickered again, and Thundercracker made a valiant attempt to keep his face free of expression. However, the Seeker's wings twitched one too many times to be a coincidence. "I've heard the old mech's symbiote made quite a sight."

Bluestreak smiled and let his kibble twitch in time with the Seeker's longer ones. "So, you come to visit, and you get saddled with guard duty?"

"Actually, I volunteered." Thundercracker smirked at the way Bluestreak's door-wings jumped in the air. "Yeah, that was the same reaction your SiC gave me when I approached him. I was just a little tired of playing politics with the humans and thought I'd be able to contribute more here."

Thundercracker nodded towards the cracked door, and Bluestreak peeked through the crack to the mech within. Starscream sat huddled behind the plasma barrier Wheeljack and Perceptor had transferred from the ship Prowl's team had arrived in. A pair of bright red optics peeked through the gap in his arms, and Starscream unfurled enough to snarl at the Autobot before shuffling around to present his shackled wings.

"Not to seem unappreciative, but I think Optimus liked having you in those meetings. He could use the whole 'he's not an Autobot, so I can't really control what he says' excuse to let you argue with Galloway until he's blue in the face." Bluestreak shuffled away from the door and leaned against the wall again. "Now, you're kinda just…standing here."

Thundercracker's head slowly turned, and Bluestreak followed the same path, scanning the base from one side to another and finding the base surprisingly void of everyone at the moment. This was around the time that he would normally be in one of those hangars too, listening to Recall tell him everything the sparklings had done that day while Topaz threw her dolls around.

"Actually, this is best place for me to be right now. I knew the moment I landed on the base and didn't hear him squawking that it was serious."

"Really? Ironhide said he had finally just burned out his voice component."

Thundercracker chuckled and crossed one leg over the other as he leaned against the hangar. "You Autobots have a stunted image of Starscream. To you, he has one volume: loud and high-pitched. Decepticons knew he had at least two. Me and Skywarp—we've been around him long enough to tell the difference between each pitch, and those seem universal for each Starscream so far. He has a special pitch when he's dealing with Autobots, another when it's Megatron, and even one for dealing with you now."

The Seeker paused to look back into the hangar while Bluestreak glared at him. "But when Starscream's silent, that's when you need to start worrying. It's when he starts to think, and Starscream's a brilliant mind whether you'd want to believe or not. If he clamped up as quickly as your Weapons Specialist said he did, then that's even worse."

Bluestreak glanced back into the hangar like Thundercracker had. Starscream hissed over his shoulder at them and scooted across the floor to be further away from them. "Have you told Optimus that?"

"Why do you think Prowl relented in letting me take watch?"

"You think it's that serious?"

"He already has a plan, and it's already in action. He's just waiting for it to reach its climax." Thundercracker flicked his wings and turned away from the door. "We still haven't found Shockwave, so odds are it has something to do with him. Unless we find him, there's nothing more we can do. Not the best plan, but we can't do much when the humans have us tied down."

Bluestreak nodded and pushed away from the wall. Some humans were starting to come back out, and he waved when he recognized a few of them. "At least it's just Shockwave. We haven't picked up on anymore Decepticons coming to Earth, and Prowl's almost certain that the 'Cons that attacked NIMROD were all the ones Starscream had rallied to Earth. He wouldn't have attempted such a bold attack otherwise."

Thundercracker didn't return the smile Bluestreak gave him. "You weren't on Shockwave's lab ship. Drones are just as capable as a sparked soldier and much quicker for Shockwave to assemble."

The Autobot hummed and turned towards the sparkling hangar. "I'll keep that in mind. See you later, 'Cracker."

"Bluestreak." Bluestreak paused and turned halfway to acknowledge Thundercracker again. The Seeker's wings began to twitch again. "I've heard that you're hanging around Soundwave and his army of brats."

Bluestreak's door-wings went rigid, and he gave the Seeker a hard smile. "Got you worried too?"

Thundercracker slowly shook his head. "I don't care who hang out with in your free time, but a word of advice: there is no Soundwave without Megatron. Whatever your goals may be, remember that's what his will be. And Megatron's the last mech we need if we're going to try to make your Prime's peaceful treaty work."

Bluestreak slowly nodded and continued in the direction he had been going. One more glance over his shoulder showed him that Thundercracker had returned to his post, head tilted to the side in order to watch the still loyal Decepticon through the crack in the door.

**~III~**

Bluestreak attempted to control his anger as he stepped out of the hangar. The sun had now completely set, and the high powered lights surrounding the compound illuminated each hangar across the base. He stared into the shadows the lights also produced and pulled in a long drought of cool air. The act did nothing to calm him, but it cooled his frame by a fraction of a unit.

Confrontations with Skywarp and Star were never pretty. He preferred the silent glares and soft hisses he received now as opposed to the heated arguments they had fallen into any time they met a month ago, but it made him no less tense to sit in the same hangar and pretend to be happy for Recall and Topaz. As soon as the two sparklings had fallen into recharge, Bluestreak had left them in the care of the Arcee triplets. His wings twitched at the phantom heat of Skywarp's glare while he had fled the hangar.

Bluestreak slowly released the air he had sucked in and moved along the familiar line of hangars. One of the benefits of having a designated section of the base all to themselves was that Bluestreak had no reason to worry about waking the humans as he stomped down across the base. The destroyed base of NIMROD was still more desirable in his opinion, and he wished that the Autobots' collaboration with the humans could inspire a replicated base. For now, he was happy to be able to vent the majority of his irritation before he reached the last hangar that stood beside the makeshift med-bay.

The mech knocked on the door and waited for a stifled noise to welcome him in. It came soon after, and he carefully pulled back the door and ducked inside. The inside of the hangar was illuminated by smaller versions of the lights outside, revealing two piles of dismantled junk on either side of the hangar and a makeshift workbench opposite the door. Wheeljack turned to him and flashed his now clean vocal fins. "Bluestreak."

"You're looking better." Bluestreak froze when Wheeljack quickly lifted a finger to his blast mask and pointed to a spot on his workbench. A pile of sheets stained from oil and other lubricants rested on one end of the table, and a stubby leg kicked around the edges as a little T-rex snuggled into a stegosaurus' belly while a tiny pterodactyl wiggled around to avoid a swinging tail.

Wheeljack reached over to cover the Dinobots up again and gestured for Bluestreak to join him. The lights on his head lightly flashed. "I almost forgot how hard it was to get them to settle down for recharge. Snarl's discovered some interesting excuses—from Jazz, no doubt. Now, what brings you by so late?"

Bluestreak stared down at the table, finding the latest scorch mark that littered the dented surface. It was hard to believe what produced that small mark had landed the engineer in Ratchet's med-bay with those nasty injuries. "Just came by to see how you were doing. I heard from First Aid that you got released from the med-bay early, and I didn't see the Dinobots in the hangar when I went to put Recall and Topaz down for the night."

Wheeljack nodded and picked up what he had been working on before Bluestreak's arrival. Bluestreak almost mistook it for a smaller version of the Energon converters Wheeljack had developed, but the tinkling sound of chimes came from it when Wheeljack tilted it. "Yeah, Optimus didn't have a problem with me bringing the sparklings back here. Ratchet asserted his authority as CMO and assigned me to light duty until—what's the human saying?—hell freezes over. I was thinking of developing a cryo projectile to speed the process up."

"'Projectile?'"

"Ratchet said that if he so much hears me say the 'b-word,' he'll retrofit me into a microwave. I told him I could at least still nuke things that way, but he didn't find that very funny."

Bluestreak covered his mouth to stifle his laughter, and Wheeljack flashed him before returning his attention to what he worked on. "So, no more explosions for a while. Was working on an energy convertor for Lennox, but Grimlock wanted something to play with. Realized they didn't have many toys of the Cybertronian variation."

The younger mech nodded and leaned against the table to get a better look chiming box Wheeljack spun around in his hand. "That almost looks like a little holo-keyboard."

"It is." Wheeljack paused and lightly touched one of the chimes. "Well, sort of. 'Course, I don't have the materials to make a genuine holo-keyboard, but something's better than nothing."

Bluestreak nodded again and silently watched Wheeljack fiddle with the pseudo holo-keyboard. The chimes continued to knock to together, and every so often, a Dinobot would shift around in their makeshift bed. "It's kinda nice to find you fiddling with something again just for the heck of it."

Wheeljack hummed. "Rafael said the same thing when he came by earlier."

Bluestreak's optics brightened. "Raf's on base now?"

"Yep. Just got transferred in as a tech." Wheeljack made a noise as he attempted to glue two parts together without gluing his fingers to it. "Spent about a month laid up in a hospital from multiple burns, lacerations, and fractured skull."

The sharpshooter frowned and carefully grabbed the toy when Wheeljack lifted it with a sigh. The toy easily detached from the engineer's hand, and Wheeljack searched the desk for a rag to clean off the glue on his hand. "That wasn't your fault, Wheeljack."

"So I've heard." Wheeljack took the toy back and carefully spun it in his hands. "I'm thinking red for the paintjob. Grimlock would like that, and if he likes it, maybe he won't look for a way to smash it as quickly."

Bluestreak nodded with a smile, though he couldn't say anything else after that. He listened to Wheeljack go on about the ideas he had for "light duty" projects, ranging from scanners for the humans to toys for the sparklings. Bluestreak smiled and nodded until Snarl began move around in the Dino-pile. He took that opportunity to slip out of the hangar and travel to the next.

The Autobot didn't knock at this hangar; instead, he walked right in and was greeted by a low growl. He fluttered his door-wings down at the feline symbiote that blended into the shadows of the dark corner, its red optics the only thing that gave away its position. Ravage prowled behind him as Bluestreak crossed the small hangar to stand beside the dark mech that sat between a pile of monitors and computer towers and another pile of dismantled parts.

Soundwave didn't look up from the tiny monitor he methodically took apart, but Rumble paused with the wires he had been splicing together. The symbiote grinned and slapped his brother, who chittered and threw the microchip he had been fiddling with. "Hey, Babblebot! Remind me to thank you're dumb friend. Me and Frenz' had a good time messin' with your paranoid SD."

Frenzy cackled, and Bluestreak tilted his head down at them. "What were you doing with Red Alert? He doesn't like you guys in his monitor room."

Rumble smirked at this brother, who continued to cackle. "Well, when _somebody_ decides to shirk their duties, then somebody else has to take his place. And when that somebody else has Prowl's comm. frequency…"

"I get it." Rumble cackled alongside Frenzy, and they went back to their work. Bluestreak shook his head and focused on Soundwave, who had continued to methodically take apart computers. "Where did you get all these computers?"

"eBay."

Bluestreak's optics winked. "Why?"

"Autobot engineer: unwilling to share."

"Is that a joke?"

Soundwave paused and tilted his head up. His red visor cast a red tint over his frowning face. "Humor unintended. Answered query truthfully."

"Oh." Soundwave went back to dismantling a monitor, and Bluestreak poked at a computer tower on top on the pile. "How did you manage to get these delivered here?"

"Paid extra for stealth jet delivery." A beat passed before Soundwave looked up again. "Humor intended."

A whistle came from the telepath's lap, and Bluestreak smiled down at the ridiculously small Cassette hoping along the Cassette deck's thigh. Rumble released a static filled snort and slapped his hand against Soundwave's side. "We got a long way to go with that humor of yours, Boss."

"Noted."

Bluestreak's door-wings fluttered, and he shook his head. "Not something I would have ever imagined hearing from Soundwave, but okay. Anyway, we might have a problem."

Soundwave placed the monitor he worked with on the floor beside him and gently urged Laserbeak into his hand. He placed the tiny Cassette in the hands of Frenzy and stood up to fully face Bluestreak. "Status report."

Door-wings flicked up, and Bluestreak almost felt the same weight on them as when Prowl ordered a report from him. He shifted his stance and clasped his arms behind his back. "Wheeljack's not ready to help yet."

Soundwave tilted his head a fraction. "Reasons?"

"He's just…" Bluestreak trailed off, and he couldn't keep his kibble to remain still. "He needs more time. That's it."

The telepath stared at Bluestreak, and the sharpshooter ran a quick diagnostic to ensure all of his mental barriers were in place. Satisfied with their strength, Bluestreak let his optics stray just below Soundwave's visor. Soundwave's head tilted to the other side. "Grieving period taken into account. Engineer vital for success."

"I know, I know! You've made that clear enough." A snicker came from down by their feet, but Bluestreak chose to ignore it. Instead, he remained focused on Soundwave's tight frown. "But I know Wheeljack a lot more than you do, and I'm not about to risk him blowing himself up again. He's not in the right state of mind right now."

Soundwave vented and stepped around Rumble and Frenzy's work area. Ravage followed the mech through the hangar, his claws tapping against the floor as he walked. Soundwave walked to the door and back, and Bluestreak briefly wondered if anyone had witnessed the telepath pace. "Logic sound. Another month until engineer's recruitment."

"Why can't we just use the Space Bridge technology Sentinel is supposed to have?" Bluestreak gestured towards the door of the hangar. "We know we're in the same dimension as the movie we watched in the cabin; we've confirmed it from some of the humans we've interacted with and our altered designs. It would save us a lot of time and material in making our own."

"Too many unknown variables."

"And if we're going by movie fact, the 'Cons already have the majority of those pillars," Rumble inserted from below. The smaller mech crossed his arms over his thin chest and watched Soundwave walk towards the door a second time. "That's our plan B—the kinda plan B that only happens when we've got no other choice. For all we know, we could've altered that timeline already, and Sentinel might not have ever made it to the moon."

"Point taken." Bluestreak placed his hands on his sides and waited for Soundwave to walk back towards him. "And Wheeljack's the only one we've got with enough understanding of the technology to superpower a Ground Bridge to zap us halfway across the galaxy. Give him another month; he's finally starting to reconnect with the Dinobots, and I think that'll help him get through the guilt he holds over what happened at the NIMROD base."

"Conversation repetitive—course of action already decided." Soundwave paused his pacing, and Ravage laid down beside his foot. "Other complications?"

"Yeah—Starscream."

Soundwave nodded, and Bluestreak wasn't surprised that further explanation was unneeded. "Starscream planning escape. Action anticipated. Known plans for prevention?"

"Not yet. The humans have been laying down a lot of red tape, and Optimus can't really do anything until it happens."

"Humans politics: worse than Senate."

Rumble and Frenzy laughed at the comparison, but Bluestreak could only shrug. "Wouldn't know—was too young when the war started. Thundercracker said it was something to worry about though, and I've learned he's someone whose worries you should take seriously."

"Affirmative."

Bluestreak held up his hands now and sidestepped Soundwave to be closer to the door. "That's all I've got for now. I need to go recharge before Ratchet gets on my case again. That's the last thing I want after today."

Soundwave nodded and easily returned to his place on the floor, making Bluestreak's door-wings twitch at the fluid ease his frame portrayed in doing so. "Recharge: necessary evil. Will remain here if needed."

It took Bluestreak a moment to nod, and he left the hangar without another word. Once he was outside, he let the tension in his frame flow out of him, and he glanced up at the sky with a tired vent. The numerous stars glittered above him, and Bluestreak flickered through the settings of optics until the image above him was nearly the same as it would be for a human—just tiny white specks of light on a black backdrop.

A light touch to his foot made him glance down, and the feline symbiote at his feet stared back at him with golden optics. Bluestreak knelt down and ran a finger down the spine of the black and white feline. "Everybody's got a little worried about the company I keep, huh? All you need to know is that we're working to fix all this. Soundwave might not be the most trustworthy mech out there, but how long ago did we think _none_ of the Decepticons could be trusted?"

Nuisance stared back with his eerily attentive gaze, and his question remained unanswered.

**~III~**

**~How was your day?**

**~Good? My day was a little stressful, but nothing new about that. **

**~Recall got to play with Star today. He told me all about the game of freeze tag him and Star played, and Topaz finger-painted with Bulkhead and Laserbeak.**

**~Wheeljack's still a little messed up. He still thinks that you and Smokey are dead because he wasn't diligent enough. I keep telling him that isn't true, but he still doesn't wanna hear it. He finally stopped avoiding the Dinobots though; I don't think he realized how much he needed them until he saw how much they needed him.**

**~Sideswipe also doesn't like salt water; something about a rust infection when he was younger. Who knew? Sunny knows you're out there—he's just in denial.**

**~…I miss you.**

**~I'm trying to get you back.**

**~I wish you could hear me.**

**~We'll figure out how to get rid of the barrier though.**

**~I'm not giving up on finding you.~**

* * *

**AN: **The last section was a little last minute, but I kinda wanted something to parallel with Vicky's section with the spark from last section. So, there's a little idea of what's going on with Blue on Earth. Next Blue chapter will definitely have more sparklings (and maybe we'll see a little Skywarp?), but for now, it's back to Vicky in Space :D

Also, I'm not promising any update deadline this time. I've realized lately that I'm very bad at getting the chapters done by that time, and I don't want to give any false hopes of another chapter in two weeks. It might happen, but I don't wanna make a _definite_ promise. But as always, any updates will be on Mondays now :)

So, until next update :D


	4. The Power of Socializing - Victoria

**AN:** What do you mean it's been over a year since I last updated? I do not know what you mean. :|

But yeah, I'm so sorry about the _super_ long wait for this chapter. I have absolutely no idea what happened to give me such bad writer's block for this story. But less talk, more chapter!

**Time Units**  
Orbital Cycle: 1 month  
Joor: ~1 hour  
Solar Cycle [Cycle]: ~1 day  
Vorn: 83 years

* * *

Rise

Chapter Three

The Power of Socializing

* * *

Mirage had told her multiple times that Cybertronians did not dream. Victoria already knew that; Wheeljack had once explained that the closest thing to dream that Cybertronians experienced was the occasional memory feedback while they recharged. Bluestreak had simply smiled and pretended that memory fluxes had never sent him off during the night to aimlessly drive around for hours.

Memory fluxes—according to both Wheeljack and Mirage—only occurred in times of intense stress and only with events that left a strong impression on the person. Victoria equivocated it to more of a form of PTSD than simply dreams, but her expertise on the manner was far from definitive. She had only seen the aftermath of a memory flux, both as a human and a newly created Cybertronian.

Waking up to a horrible shriek and screeching metal always made the spark in her chest stop.

Victoria shot up from her berth the moment she heard it. The hab-suite was pitch black, but she could see the flickering red lights of Patronus's optics as he threw himself back and forth on the berth across the room. Victoria practically fell off the berth in her attempt to reach the young Prime before he did anything to hurt himself.

She had heard many times as a human not to wake someone in the middle of night terror, but everything happened too quickly to even think. She grabbed the nearest limb she could find and shook with all her might. "Patronus! It's okay—it's just a nightmare."

Victoria had no time to react to the arm that shot up. A sharp protrusion on Patronus's elbow caught the edge of one of her head fins; Victoria yelped at the sudden pain and nearly let go of the younger mech. She shook her head at the dull throb that emitted from that same fin and threw her whole body over him, gripping his shoulders for support. "Patronus!"

Patronus's optics erratically flickered for a few seconds, and the muffled noise he had been producing up until that point became a little clearer. Victoria felt a sharp stab in her chest when she was able to understand one of the words as "daddy."

As Patronus's flailing calmed down, Victoria carefully climbed over the mech's wings and leaned against the wall to cradle his head in her lap. Her quiet hushes came out more as crackling static, but the noise in combination with careful pets along the crown of his helm calmed him until his optics flickered off.

Victoria continued to cradle his head, humming a nameless tune, until the lights of the hab-suite flickered on, signaling the start of a new day.

**~III~**

"Soooo…"

Victoria shifted in response, and she heard Patronus mimic the movements behind her. Blaster hummed and rubbed the back of his head while both bipedal Cassettes grinned beside him, or in Rewind's case brightened every little light his frame emitted. "I didn't really have anything _planned…"_

"Please don't make me return to Mirage." Victoria felt her frame heat up at Eject's snicker and Blaster's winking optics. Rewind merely shifted back and forth on the heels of his feet, the little red light blinking on the side of his head. "I mean, I can only take so much 'reliving the good times in the Towers' conversations."

Blaster released a hearty laugh. Victoria felt her fingers twitch. "You're laughing, but those conversations are like boring history lessons."

A gush of air hit the back of her head. Her tense bodyguard was the only one who truly understood the irony of her words—just another little secret that separated them from the rest of the crew. "Plus, he'll see it as some kind of failure and forever use it against me. I'll even write your daily report or whatever if you save me from _that_."

"No need for somethin' _that _extreme." Blaster's chuckles died off, and he lifted a finger to tap his chin. A thoughtful hum from him made Eject fidget in place. "You're still a li'l too fresh to dive right into transmissions, but too inexperienced for interviews…"

Eject flung his hand up and did a few little hops to get the red and orange mech's attention. "Ooh, ooh, I know! How about messages? Even a rookie couldn't mess that up on the first cycle on the job."

"You do realize I _did _have a job before ending up here."

Victoria shook her head when the two mechs ignored her. Blaster reached down to pat Eject on the shoulder, and Rewind danced out of the way when Blaster's other hand attempted to pat his head too. "Good thinkin', my mech! Message runnin'll teach her the prime lesson of Communications."

Blaster gestured for Victoria to follow him into the Communications hub with Eject and Rewind automatically following behind him. Victoria paused and glanced up at Patronus. "So…"

"Mirage said I can't follow you around when you're 'on duty.'" Victoria smiled at the exaggerated air quotes the mech did. "He said it would 'discourage any bonding with the rest of the crew.' What's the point of being a bodyguard if you're not supposed to discourage weird mechs from getting too close?"

"I think that's Mirage's way of saying that no one on board is a threat."

"Then he shouldn't restrict you from interacting with a whole group of mechs in the same breath."

Eject reappeared before Victoria could respond. He smiled up at Patronus and slapped the flier's hip when he walked by. "C'mon, big guy. Mirage just messaged Blaster to order you to vacate the premises. He said something about Nightbeat needing a hand on the lower deck."

Patronus's wings clung to his lower back, and he grumbled under his breath as he followed the smaller mech. Victoria continued to smile until they had both vanished around the corner. Her smile slightly fell, and she took a hesitant step into the Communications hub.

The room was slightly dimmer than she remembered; the overhead lights appeared to be only a small fraction of the room's light source while the large console on the far side of the room emitted a brighter light from its glowing screens. That light highlighted Blaster's frame as he stood typing on the main keyboard, occasionally flicking a finger across the screen of a data-pad lying beside him.

Rewind waved her over and gave a little laugh when she tripped halfway across the room. "Careful! Ramhorn doesn't appreciate being overlooked."

Victoria tensed at the loud snort that graced her ankles and froze when the red beast she had seen the day before trotted past her with an even gate. Now that she had a closer look at the Cassette, she was surprised by how much it resembled a rhinoceros. He curled up in the corner of the room and glared at her with dark blue optics. "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it." Ramhorn snorted again and shifted to face the wall. Blaster continued without turning away from the console. "Ramhorn has a thing for getting' underneath mechs' feet. He'll mellow out the longer ya know him."

Victoria nodded and continued her path across the room, coming to a stop next to Rewind. She stared at the symbols that flew across the screen of the monitor and shook her head, a small ache forming behind her optics the longer she stared. She only recognized about half the symbols that flew across the screen, and even then, none of them formed coherent sentences. "Umm…"

"Lesson number one of Communications." Blaster detached the data-pad from a cord that Victoria hadn't noticed. He held it out to her, and she hesitated before taking it. "Communications is all about communicating!"

"Meaning socializing."

"Exactly!" Blaster smiled down at Rewind, and the Cassette's visor brightened in response. Victoria was too busy gawking down at the data-pad to notice the exchange. "What's the point o' just hangin' out in a tiny room all cycle? Ya gotta mingle to get the rundown on things. It's what keeps the cycle o' communications going."

Victoria glanced up at the mech and tried to ignore the squeaking noise her fingers made when they squeezed the data-pad. "What about messages from outside the ship? Mirage made it seem like that's what you mainly did."

"That's the second lesson." Blaster's smile never faltered, and a twisting nausea was beginning to form in Victoria's abdomen. "Ya can't just be skippin' lessons on me."

"Eject tried once; he got stuck on message patrol for an entire orbital cycle."

"Yep, and ya don't wanna be stuck on message runnin' forever. Besides." Blaster paused to tap the data-pad in Victoria's hand. "Those _are_ the messages from outside."

"Then why don't you just let mechs come here to read them?" Victoria glanced over the screen again but immediately looked away when the pit of nausea grew worse. "Surely, that would be easier on everyone."

"That would be ignorin' lesson one."

"But…" Victoria trailed off, hands clenching the data-pad. Both Blaster and Rewind tilted their heads to the side, waiting for her to continue, and she would have found the simultaneous movements amusing if she wasn't fighting the urge to panic. "I…I'm still getting to know the layout of the ship! It would take me forever to find half of these guys on the list, and that's only if they're in the places they're supposed to be."

Blaster hummed and waved at the corner of the room. "Ramhorn can guide ya 'round the ship fo' now. He's still workin' on his socializin' too."

Ramhorn grunted but nonetheless stood up. He waddled over to Victoria and glared up at her. Victoria frowned and couldn't help but imagine that he would chew on her ankles if she made one wrong move. She turned her attention back to Blaster, and her frown deepened as he continued to widely smile at her. "I'm starting to get the feeling that this is something you just don't want to do."

"_What?_" Victoria nodded at Rewind's sudden snicker and Blaster's exaggerated tone. "I would _never_ take advantage of my newly obtained assistant."

"You just lost your accent," Victoria said, making Blaster's optics wink. "I've known Jazz long enough to learn that losing the accent is a sign that he's lying."

Blaster's optics winked, and the little red light on Rewind's head camera blinked off for the first time since their conversation started. "How do you know Jazz?"

"I met him…"

Victoria stopped as the mechs continued to stare at her. Once they had stopped blinking, Blaster's optics had slightly darkened, and Rewind's visor flickered back and forth between them. Both of their frames were tense, and it took Victoria a moment to realize why.

Pixel should have never met Jazz. Mirage had meticulously repeated her history over and over again: Pixel's family had been one of the first noble families to flee Cybertron when the war broke out. That explained her lack of knowledge when it came to weapons and fighting. Her family had been hiding out on a Neutral colony when a group of unaligned mechs had raided them. She had been forced into a stasis pod with Patronus and landed on an uninhabited rock in the Lilivuvian Quadrant, which was supposed to explain why Mirage knew where she was—by tracking the signal of her stasis pod. There were no gaps in the story that had been related to the mechs.

Except…

"I met him before the war." Victoria held her breath, waiting for a reaction. Blaster's optics winked again, and Rewind's recording light flickered back on. "We ran into each other a few times when I visited Iacon's Hall of Records. It was one of the few places my creators would let me go without nagging me about my lessons."

"And you remember him from that long ago?"

"How do you forget Jazz?" Rewind chuckled along with Blaster, and Victoria relaxed again. Thank goodness she still remembered the little details she had learned about the mechs during their time in her brother's cabin. "He's too unique of a character to forget so easily."

"I hear that." Blaster grabbed a chair that sat next to him and collapsed into it. "I only met him after the war broke out, durin' my trainin' in recon. He was the one that stressed the socializin' part o' Communications."

"Is that your way of saying I'm not getting out of this?"

"Cheer up!" Rewind left Blaster's side to give Victoria's hand an encouraging pat. "You could be the one _archiving_ the messages to be delivered."

"I thought ya enjoyed archivin'."

"Well, I'm not like Eject and _totally_ despise it." Rewind climbed into the chair next to Blaster and began taping on the keyboard that Blaster wasn't using. "But a mech can only take so many joors doing the same repetitive work."

"You mechs sure have been pushin' fo' more breaks lately."

Victoria sighed as the two mechs pointedly ignored her now. With a quick glance down at her huffing companion, Victoria shuffled out of the room. She stopped as soon as the door shut behind her and tapped the screen of the data-pad. She frowned at the few symbols she recognized and turned to Ramhorn when he grunted again. "Uh, I think we should track down Mirage first."

**~III~**

Victoria sighed and barely paid attention to Ramhorn's snort against her ankles. She stared at the bright screen of the data-pad, but it still made as much sense as it did before—it all read as gibberish to her. Ramhorn snorted again. "Well, this would go a lot more faster if you could track down Mirage."

Ramhorn gave her a long stare, which she interpreted as a preemptive warning for him chewing on her ankles. After an unrelenting staring contest, he wobbled ahead of her with a snort, and she followed. "Where are we anyway? You've taken me back and forth so many times that I've last track of the floor we stopped on."

All she received as an answer was a snort. She sighed and tried again to interpret hieroglyphics in front of her. "Let's see…this means '1'…I think. Yeah, because this is '2.' Maybe that means the floor each mech should be? Or did Blaster just give me a numbered list?"

Victoria hummed and scrolled through the short list again. "Okay, no. It's totally not a numbered list because the numbers are out of order and repeat. Which floor are we on, Ramhorn?"

A snort was her only answer. "I thought that might be the case. Maybe I can just slowly decode this by using everything that Wheeljack taught me…"

"Running another errand for Mirage?"

Victoria jumped and clutched the data-pad in her hands to her chest. She would never get over the replacement of her heart beating in her ear to the almost mechanical whir of her spark, but she did a valiant job at trying to calm it as she turned towards the voice. Skyfire smiled down at her with an unmistakable flicker of amusement in his optics.

The large shuttle chuckled when Victoria used her data-pad to smack his arm. "How can a mech as big as you be so _quiet_?"

"Vorns living around Seekers." Skyfire chuckled once more at her disgruntled frown and shifted the tubes balanced in his arm. He nodded at Ramhorn, who acknowledge him with an uninterested snort. "You looked a little lost though, so I thought I'd lend a hand, though it seems that isn't necessary. I didn't realize that you had an escort."

Victoria huffed. "I'm still figuring the ship out, so Blaster told him to come with me. He's getting us to 'socialize' together."

"I think I've heard the Cassettes use that excuse to hang out in the rec-room while on duty," Skyfire said with a small laugh. "I would think Eject or Rewind would have jumped at the chance to help you."

"Apparently they're both very easily scared off when it comes to running messages."

They both paused to look down at Ramhorn, who had emitted a strange noise somewhere between a snort and an odd gurgle. The shuttle grinned when Ramhorn waddled a few steps down the hall. "Now that I think about it, that's not surprising. They love to socialize but playing messenger hadn't been high on their priority lists. Better you got paired up with Ramhorn than either of them."

"Yeah." Victoria glanced over at Ramhorn, who now sat staring at a wall. Maybe they had offended him in some way; he was a lot harder to read than the other Cassettes. "He's _great_ company."

"He'll grow on you at some point just like he's done with…most of the crew." Skyfire shifted his posture, expertly balancing the tubes he held. "So, any messages for me?"

Victoria handed the data-pad over to the mech without a second thought. He maneuvered the tubes into one arm and took the data-pad to skim through the list on the front screen. "I think I might have seen your name on there? I'm pretty sure I saw a mention of the lab on there at least."

Victoria froze as Skyfire's optics skimmed the screen. It was a long shot—a _really _long shot—but how else was she going to confirm her suspicions? If she knew if the numbers she had found represented the floor each mech was supposed to be on, she would at least be able to figure out which mechs could be on the list. If anything, she could just play it off as a mistake if Skyfire didn't find his name.

The tips of Skyfire's fingers tapped against the screen, and he hummed. "I don't normally receive any transmissions…ah! What do you know? There is one for me…and it's from Perceptor! It's been a while since I heard from him. I was starting to worry the outpost he resided at had been…"

Victoria relaxed while Skyfire trailed off to read over the recorded message Blaster had transcribed. Her suspicions had been correct! Either that, or she had just been extremely lucky. She was lucky enough to have learned a few things from Wheeljack, but that certainly didn't make her fluent in the language; she would have to talk to Mirage about having a crash course in written Cybertronian.

A sudden whistling stung Victoria's audials. She shook her head as it became sharper, and her hand unconsciously reached up to rub the side of her head, the tips of her fingers tracing the prominent symbol engraved on the left side of her head. As suddenly as it began, the whistling stopped; the low lilt of voices brushed across her sensors instead.

_"Did I not tell you that you would benefit from my lesson on organic beings?"_

_"Yes, Quintus. For the last time, I concede that I should have listened…but would you not have accompanied us to this new planet if I had?"_

_"Well…perhaps not."_

_"Then, is it not a _good_ thing that I did not listen?"_

_"Prima will not be pleased with what we have done."_

_"When is Prima ever pleased with the actions of his brothers? It is about time that we prove we can make our own decisions. Isn't that right, Megatronus?"_

"That's strange."

The distant voice caused snapped Victoria back to the present, and her whole body jerked at sudden sensory input, sending her flailing to keep her balance. Skyfire jerked back too at her sudden actions and dropped both the data-pad and the tubes to grab her before she fell. "Primus! Are you all right?"

Victoria's vision spun before she was able to focus on the mech's bewildered optics. She took a deep breath and realized that her spark was erratically spinning in a familiar way—one that was never because of her own emotions. "I'm fine…I think."

Skyfire kept his hands on her shoulders as she regained her balance. "I'm starting to worry that it might be me that causes things like this to happen! It never fails that I'm the one closest to you when it does."

"It's not your fault." Victoria patted the side of his arm. Skyfire released her after a moment's hesitation. "Trust me, it has absolutely nothing with you being around."

Skyfire continued to frown, but Victoria bent down to grab the data-pad that had fallen. She helped him pick up his tubes too when he crouched down to retrieve them. A long, harsh vent came from the mech. "I keep telling Mirage that we need an Autobot medic onboard. Someone like First Aid would be able to figure out why you keep zoning out like that."

"Ex-_cuse_ me?"

Victoria jumped at the new voice, but Skyfire merely tensed and turned towards the polished mech that approached them. Knock Out glared at Skyfire as he came to a stop next to them, a sneer fitted perfectly on his angular face. "I'll have you know that I take my position as this ship's _Chief Medical Officer_ very seriously."

"I believe the Stunticons would beg to differ."

Knock Out's sneer grew more pronounced, and he positioned his hands on his canted hips. "The Stunticons are an obvious exception."

Skyfire went to retaliate, but Victoria quickly stepped between the two mechs. The last thing she wanted was a fight to break out and worsen the new ache that resonated from the left side of her head. "Hi, Knock Out! How are you today?"

The Decepticon snorted and began to pick at the joints of his fingers. "My cycle was going well until I encountered yet another Autobot questioning my skills. You would think that they would be more civil knowing it will be _my_ operating table they land on if something unexpected were to happen."

"That's…great." Victoria turned back to Skyfire, who no longer looked like the gentle giant she had become used to. His glare was as sharp as any other mech's, and he kept it focused on Knock Out. "You said something before I had my moment. Something being strange?"

Knock Out rolled his optics when Skyfire took a moment longer to glare at him, but the shuttle eventually turned his attention back to Victoria and gestured at the data-pad. "Yes, I didn't recognize the coordinates that Perceptor sent his message from."

"Is that good or bad?"

"Depends really. He may have landed at an Autobot outpost that was recently created or a Neutral colony that neither Autobot or Decepticon had found before."

"Because the Decepticons are just so _eager_ to track down every sniveling Neutral we can."

Skyfire ignored the medic with ease. "Or this could, unfortunately, be a fake message. I doubt that though; Perceptor has this way of communicating that few mechs can easily replicate."

"Again, every Decepticon just has so much free time on their hands to send out fake messages to every Autobot." Knock Out huffed when Skyfire refused to look at him again and turned his attention to Victoria. She frowned when his optics trailed up and down her frame. "You have a maintenance check scheduled for the end of the cycle."

"But I never—"

"You just about took down a shuttle when you glitched." Knock Out gave Skyfire a pointed smirk and ignored Victoria's protests. He daintily placed a hand on his chest. "See? Responsible medic—now go be a good mech and keep that nutjob below from blowing a hole in the side of the ship and killing us all."

Victoria sighed when Skyfire optics snapped back to the medic. "Shouldn't you be locating your 'worshippers' before they break another dispenser?"

Knock Out's sly smile instantly fell back into a sneer, and both of his hands clenched into fists. "They are not my responsibility!"

"I hear a different story from the mechs who were here when Mirage found you and the Stunticons hiding in the crater of an asteroid."

"While you were forced into stasis after the Decepticons destroyed your precious Autobot lab? By the way, how many 'scientists' died because they refused treatment from a Decepticon medic? Seems a little petty if you ask me."

Victoria glanced between the two glaring mechs and sighed. Perhaps she should have been more wary stepping between two mechs that practically radiated visible waves of anger towards each other; perhaps she should have thought twice before she put her hands on either mech to push them apart. Their interaction reminded her too much of Star and Grimlock's little spats though, and experience had taught her that the quickest way to defuse a situation like this was simply to separate the two opposing force. "Okay, let's just take a step back and—"

"I just buffed that!" Victoria snatched her hand away from Knock Out and tensed. Knock out appeared less interested in her and more upset by the slight smudge her hand left behind on his chest. Victoria relaxed a little when his only immediate reaction was to wave one hand at the smudge as if he could not figure out what to do with it. "This finish was meant to last me until the next refueling stop."

With a shake of her head, Victoria sighed, and Skyfire chuckled. "You two were this close to tearing each other apart, and your only concern is your finish? I'm starting to think your priorities might be a little out of order."

Knock Out huffed and sent a glare her way. Skyfire stepped back, making Victoria's hand fall from where it had been pressed against his abdomen. She glanced between the two and sighed again as they both continued to send each other small glares or scowls. "I know I have no say over how you act, but come on. You're both living on the same ship together. You don't have to be best friends—or even just friends for that matter—but a little bit of decorum wouldn't hurt anyone. No more mentioning sensitive topics to provoke one another."

Knock Out opened his mouth, red optics flashing, but Victoria pointed at him with a leveled stare. "I mean it."

Knock Out rolled his optics and left in the same manner he had arrived, pointedly knocking his shoulder against Skyfire's arm when he passed. Victoria slightly relaxed when the medic turned the corner, and she focused on Skyfire once more. Her spark had dramatically calmed since her earlier episode, though there was a new sense of pride that kept it whirling a little faster than normal. It stuttered a bit when Skyfire chuckled down at her. "What?"

"I was beginning to wonder if we would ever see this infamous 'Carrier Mode' Mirage warned us so much about. It's not as devastating as he described though—you're not attempting to set up play dates in the rec-room." Skyfire paused, his smile widening. "Yet."

Victoria scowled and busied herself with the data-pad she still held. A little symbol similar to a padlock glared back up at her, and her scowl deepened. "Sounds like Mirage said more about me than he let on."

"Only a little warning here and there." Victoria's visor flickered with her deepening scowl. Skyfire slightly gestured with the tubes in his arm, smile still in place. "Well, I better get these up to Brainstorm before he decides we need a better delivery system. The last time he attempted to add anything on to the ship, it didn't end very well for anyone."

Victoria nodded and stepped aside for the huge shuttle to pass. Her scowl flipped to a smile in response to the one he gave her, and she stood there until Skyfire vanished around the same corner Knock Out had. With a sigh, Victoria glared down at the data-pad she held, fingers tapping the padlock until angry red symbols appeared on the screen. "How am I supposed to unlock this? Blaster never told me it would do this!"

A few minutes passed with various failed attempts to unlock the data-pad. Victoria finally growled and turned with the intention of returning to Blaster. She froze when she found a still figure standing only a few feet down the hall.

Yellow and blue clashed, and Victoria stiffened further when Chromedome continued to stare without making any move to approach her. She refused to be the first to look away though, and she straightened her spine and stared back with a tight frown. Messages popped up on her HUD and swiveled around Chromedome's body, as if to figure out why she was staring so intently.

Ultimately, it was the sound of the elevator that made them both look away. Victoria wasn't sure whether to be grateful or intimidated by the dark blue Seeker that stepped out between her and Chromedome. He paused, red optics flickering between them, and turned in the direction of Chromedome. He paused again just before passing the Autobot and glanced back at Victoria. "I am still unaware of many Autobot protocols, but amongst Decepticons there is no fraternization allowed in the halls."

Victoria turned and briskly walked into the open elevator. Her frame remained stiff until the doors had silently slid shut, and only then did she allow herself to lean against the back wall. That was…odd, and a little creepy if she was being honest with herself. Something about Chromedome's staring didn't sit right with her, even more so than Wildrider's catcalls.

She glanced around the elevator when it stopped on a new floor and lightly smacked the data-pad against her forehead. "Dang it! I completely forgot about Ramhorn."

**~III~**

"So this is the rec-room!" Rewind widely gestured at the room he guided Victoria. "Just a little recap from last cycle's tour, this is where the majority of us come to refuel and all-around relax. It's on the first floor, third door to the left of the elevator. If someone isn't in the place where the schedule places them at, they're likely here."

Victoria nodded and tapped the screen of the data-pad when its backlight began to fade. The screen brightened again, allowing her to see which lines of symbols had the number one next to them. "Okay, so there should be…one mech here most of the time."

"Not _here _exactly, but we've come to learn that Nightbeat tends to hang out on the first floor instead of up in the monitor room." Rewind waved at where Eject sat at one of the tables, and Eject enthusiastically waved back with a cube of glowing Energon. The mech sitting next to the Cassette waved as well. "Speaking of which, there he is! He had a message right?"

"Right…" Victoria glanced down at the screen as if to confirm their guess. There was only one "1," so that had to be Nightbeat. Right? "You're a much better guide than Ramhorn."

Rewind chuckled and continued to guide her across the room to his brother and Nightbeat. "Ramhorn's not that bad when you get to know him! Though, you might want to avoid him for a little while until he forgets that you left him behind."

"I can't help that he wandered off while I gave Skyfire his message." Victoria waved when they reached the table and stared when Eject held his hand out towards her, palm out. It took her a moment to realize what he wanted, and she finally smacked her palm against his. High-fiving was a thing with Cybertronians? "How is Patronus doing?"

"He's a real team player!" Eject's smile widened when she complied with his high-five. He relaxed back in his seat, but not before kicking out the chair next to him for Rewind to climb onto. "We got through two whole storage rooms with his help. Then he had to go off and meet Megatron. "

Victoria frowned at the casual mention of Patronus's training. She handed the data-pad to Nightbeat. "Message delivery."

"Sounds serious." Victoria decided to play along with the mech and gravely nodded, making him chuckle. "Hope it isn't Muzzle demanding those credits I owe him from that game of Fullstasis."

"It's the Dispenser Saboteur." Victoria almost smiled when all three mechs turned to stare at her. "He's demanding Mirage's luxurious suite in exchange for allowing the officers' dispenser to remain functioning for another day."

There was brief a moment of silence—one that caused Victoria to stiffen—until Nightbeat burst into a fit a laughter. Victoria smiled when Eject and Rewind followed suit. "For a second there, you looked like you actually believed me."

"You're still new," Nightbeat said when he finally managed to control his laugher. He still had a few more chuckles as he accessed the data-pad to find his message. "I haven't completely figured out all of your tells."

"My tells?"

"You know: signs that you're lying or telling the truth." Nightbeat leaned back in his chair with a hum. Rewind reached over to pull out the chair that Victoria stood next too and waved at it until she complied with his silent command. "A good detective learns early on how to pick up the tells that the majority of mechs tend to have, but everyone has their own."

Victoria balanced her chin on the top of her hands and watched Eject use his fingers to punt a little piece of metal through the circle Rewind formed with his hands. "And did you pick up on any that I might have."

"Your fingers twitched a little." Nightbeat pulled out a data-pad of his own and tapped the screen, occasionally looking back to Blaster's data-pad. "But that could just be because you naturally twitch. I noticed it when we were first introduced."

Victoria gave him a tight smile when he glanced up at her. "I was told a lot in the Towers that my twitching was un-noble-like. Mirage says I have some kind of glitch."

Eject chose that moment to fling his arms up and shout, "Goal!"

Rewind laughed and flicked the metal, which Victoria realized was a small nut and bolt, back at Eject. "Lucky shot."

"Talent always makes the mechs jealous." Eject twisted around in his seat to snatch the Blaster's data-pad from Nightbeat. He used his finger to scroll through the short list. "How many messages have you managed to run so far?"

"Counting Nightbeat?" Victoria held up her hand and pretended to use her fingers to calculate. After a moment of "calculating," she held up two fingers. "Two."

"Wow," Eject said, his mouth forming an exaggerated "O." "You're slower than I am, and I'm usually slow of purpose!"

"It's not my fault that I'm still figuring everything out!" Victoria leaned back in her chair and frowned at the snickers she received. "I had to backtrack to Blaster because he never told me how to unlock the data-pad."

"You don't know how to unlock a data-pad?" Nightbeat glanced up from his data-pad, optics brightening with surprise. "They not have data-pads where you come from?"

"Not when they have pass-codes to them." Nightbeat stared at her for another click before emitting a quiet "oh!" and returning to his data-pad. Victoria turned back to Eject and Rewind, the former still snickering while the latter angled his head camera at her. "And Ramhorn's not the best guide. He never did take me to Mirage."

"That's because Mirage told us not to." Eject gave her a hand shrug when she silently stared at him. "He said he wanted you to get used to doing things without him holding your hand the entire time, and Blaster agreed. They thought it would be a good team-building exercise."

Rewind reached out to pat Victoria on the arm, and she slightly flinched when the tip of one of his fingers zapped her. "And you're part of our team now!"

"Teammates tell each other things like that."

"But you're still a rookie!" Eject widely grinned at her. "We've never had someone below us to tease before."

"I see where this relationship is going." Victoria stood up and angled her chair away from the twins before sitting down again. Ignoring Eject's constant snickers, Victoria focused on Nightbeat, who had stashed away his data-pad and was silently watching their conversation with a small smile. "So, how has your day been?"

Nightbeat lightly chuckled. "Pretty successful, I'd say. Your friend really did help with sorting through the junk the Decepticons have managed to sneak onto the ship. We found a number of paraphernalia that were confiscated."

"Sounds…exciting."

"Not really." Nightbeat leaned onto the table and smiled. Victoria shifted in her seat and ignored the new game that Eject and Rewind began. "Figuring out how they got it onboard is the exciting part. The Stunticons have managed to sneak something new onboard at every stop, and the weird thing is that it's all useless _junk_. I've had Brainstorm run a few tests on some of the things I've found, but everything came back harmless."

"What kind of stuff do they get?"

"Weird things, like broken game chips, rusted wire, and a container of synthetically colored rocks. One time, I even found a rotting toy made out of organic materials. And the Stunticons have always claimed ownership."

Victoria hummed and flicked the nut and bolt back to Eject when it bounced against her hand. "They're not allowed to bring those things onto the ship? I mean, if everything is harmless…"

"That's the weirdest part. Mirage doesn't have a problem with us purchasing personal things as long as it can't be retrofitted into a weapon; he gets Brainstorm to check all of that out, and like I said, Brainstorm has always said the stuff was harmless." Nightbeat shrugged. "They just hide it in the storage rooms."

"Do they really need a reason to be weird, though?" Victoria grabbed the impromptu metal toy when it hit her a third time and ignored Eject's loud groan. "I mean, I've only met them twice now, but they don't exactly seem the…sanest mechs."

"True, true, and I would agree if it weren't for the fact that they fight over who gets to claim all the stuff." Nightbeat laughed and pulled out his data-pad again. He flicked a finger across the screen a few times and hummed. "Yep, about eighty percent of the time, they fight about who actually brought it onboard, Wildrider and Drag Strip appearing to be the ones who fight most often, but I've witnessed Breakdown and Dead End getting in on the action too."

Nightbeat leaned closer and cupped one hand around his mouth. Out of instinct, Victoria mimicked his movements, leaning in and ignoring another groan from Eject as she moved the metal toy hostage she held away from his groping hand. "I think they're trying to court Megatron."

Victoria jerked back in her seat, the wheels on her back smacking against the chair, and she gaped at the mech. Eject hooted in victory as he regained possession of his impromptu toy. "Are you serious?"

Nightbeat's severe frown lasted for only a second before he burst into a fit of loud laughter, relaxing back into his seat. "Of course not! But I got you back for the dispenser thing."

Victoria stared at him until his joke finally registered. She smiled along with all three mechs' laughter. "That was good."

"It was." Nightbeat's laughter cut off as abruptly as it had begun, and he pointed at her with a stern finger. "But I'm getting close to figuring out what all the junk is for; I can feel it."

"Good luck with that." Victoria slid out of her chair and stood up. Rewind didn't hesitate to follow her lead; he snatched the data-pad from Eject when the Cassette attempted to lift it out of his reach. "We better get back to work before someone comes to complain that I'm not being a good team player."

"I'll let Mirage know that's not true." Rewind waved one last time at the two mechs before he followed Victoria through the maze of tables. "You were just following Blaster's orders: handing out messages and socializing."

"He'll still say I took 'longer than was properly required as _nobles_ are only required to interact with others in a friendly fashion for three seconds maximum.'" Victoria smiled as Rewind chuckled at her exaggerated attempt to mimic Mirage's voice. "'The remainder of the meeting must entail scathing, but subtle, attacks on another's character, with an option of absently revealing dark secrets to tarnish another's reputation.'"

Rewind's chuckle suddenly cut off, and he stopped short. Victoria had little time to react; she yelped as she suddenly collided with a hard surface. She stumbled back and lost her balance completely, landing on her rear with a louder yelp.

There was loud laughter behind her, probably from Eject, but Rewind's reaction was to reach out and try to help her. It wasn't his hands that grabbed her shoulders and hauled her back to her feet though. The huge hands stayed on her shoulders until her balance returned, and Victoria blinked up at the frowning, red-faced mech.

Breakdown cautiously patted her head, and Victoria frowned, resisting the urge to swat his hand away. "You all right?"

Victoria paused long enough to check herself and glance down at Rewind. Rewind tilted his head, waiting for her answer as well. "…yeah?"

"Knock Out said you were scheduled for a checkup later." Breakdown's frown deepened, and Victoria almost felt guilty for making her response sound so indecisive. "He doesn't normally schedule checkups unless he's ordered to."

"I'm fine." Victoria insisted. She patted her thighs and realized she had lost her data-pad in the fall. After a quick assessment of the area, she found it on the ground beside Breakdown's feet. "I was just surprised. Rewind didn't warn me."

Rewind stiffened, but his optic band flickered with humor. "I thought it was obvious to stop when you see a huge mech standing in the way."

"Not when I'm trying to have a meaningful conversation that requires eye contact." Rewind chuckled, and Victoria thought she heard a chuckle from Breakdown too. She was too busy reaching down to retrieve the data-pad to be sure. "It's rude not to stare directly into the face of the mech you're talking to."

Victoria's finger brushed against the data-pad when a red hand swooped in to snatch the tablet away. She snapped up and frowned at the Stunticon jabbing his finger against the screen. Wildrider ignored her and even danced out of Breakdown's reach with a cackle. "Ooh! Gossip! Let's see who's getting love letters. Dread-bore, Brain-dead, Chrome-dork…"

Wildrider managed to rattle off a few more names, dodging Breakdown's exasperated hands and making the mech angrier by the second, before Victoria stepped forward. She waited until Wildrider held the data-pad away from Breakdown with a mocking wave, and she grabbed it when it flew past her face. It took Wildrider a moment to notice that the data-pad had vanished from his hand, and even then the only thing he did was stare at the empty hand. "Hey!"

"It's rude to read others' personal mail." Victoria frowned when the full force of Wildrider's bright red optics turned on her, and her voice remained steady despite the whirling drone of her spark. "How would you feel if someone read _your_ private messages?"

Breakdown's yellow optics winked behind the red and black speedster, and Wildrider gaped at her for a long, silent moment. The moment was broken when Wildrider threw back his head and released a loud laugh. Victoria frowned as the mech went on for a few minutes, shifting one hand to her hip when Wildrider's laughter nearly sent him to the floor. "What's so funny?"

Wildrider's laughter cut off as abruptly as it began, and Victoria almost took a step back when his overly bright optics focused directly on her again. "What're you gonna do? Put me in timeout for being such a naughty mech? I could show you the kind of _punishment_ I'm in to."

Victoria did take a step back when Wildrider took one towards her, and she jumped when she bumped into something behind her. Nightbeat caught her before her startled jump sent her to the floor again. "I can have you taken to the brig for harassment. Even Megatron's approved of that."

Wildrider just laughed. A small shiver passed through Victoria's spark as the mech's bright optics continued to dance over her. "You Autobots have no sense of fun! Let me know when you wanna hang out with a _real_ mech."

Despite the oddly fluctuating spark in her chest, Victoria couldn't help but scowl at the suggestive grin Wildrider gave her. She pressed her lips together to keep from retorting and instead stepped aside to avoid Wildrider when he lurched forward into the rec-room. Breakdown followed him, stopping to stare at her for a moment before sidling past a frowning Nightbeat. Victoria almost felt the silent gaze had been some form of apology, if only because Breakdown shoved Wildrider away from the Energon dispenser with more force than she thought necessary.

A tug on her hand prompted Victoria to step forward, and she continued to follow Rewind out the door with Nightbeat on her heels. Once they were in the hallway, Eject appeared at her side and lightly tapped the data-pad still in her hand. "Where to next, rookie?"

Victoria glanced at the screen, hummed at the foreign symbols, and pointed towards the elevator farther down the hallway. "To the labs, I suppose. Better to get Brainstorm over with now rather than later."

Both Cassettes laughed, and she could even hear Nightbeat chuckle a little as he headed in the opposite direction. She smiled along with them, but a part of had to take a moment and silently thank Wildrider for his abrupt appearance. Otherwise, she would have never imagined Brainstorm had a message to be delivered.

**~III~**

Victoria grinned at the collective sigh that escaped her and her companions when the door to the Communications hub hissed open. Rewind immediately crossed the room to tap Blaster on the thigh, making the bigger mech jump at the contact. Eject, on the other hand, took his time, dragging his feet across the floor until he finally fell face first into the empty chair beside Blaster. "Mech down!"

Blaster chuckled, and Victoria crossed the room to him just in time to see him disconnect a wire from the console. It slithered under the armor on his arm and disappeared from sight. "Already? Ya haven't even finished the cycle!"

"I pulled double duty," Eject insisted. He waved at Steeljaw when the feline lumbered out form beneath the console by Blaster's feet. "Rookie here needed a guide."

"That's why I buddied her up with Ramhorn." Said Cassette snorted from the corner, and Blaster grinned. "And when he got tired, I sent Rewind. Have any troubles, li'l mech?"

"Just the usual." Rewind patted Steeljaw's rigid mane, earning a very feline-like yawn that made Victoria smile. It didn't matter where the cat came from—Earth or a distant, alien planet—there were just some traits that were universal to all felines. "Mechs not being at their assigned posts, Stunticons trying to show off, the elevator stalling between deck one and two. Brainstorm was surprisingly calm; he didn't seem to notice us because he was tinkering again, but we delivered his message to him."

"Good!" Blaster finally turned to Victoria and gave her a large smile. It wasn't the same indulgent smile that he gave his Cassettes, but Victoria would be lying if she said it didn't cause her to relax a little. "And you? Enjoy ya first cycle of socializing?'

"It was…" Victoria paused and tried to ignore Eject's soft snickers. "…interesting?"

"Is that a nice way o' saying it ain't your style?" Blaster dismissed Victoria's protests with a wave of his hand. "S'alright! Not every mech's cut out fo' communications. Dreadwing all but ran outta here the moment Mirage recruited me."

"Dreadwing was in charge of this before you?" Victoria asked with a tiny laugh. "That would explain why he ran every time we tried to give him his message."

"I offered him a position as a joke once, an' the mech ain't trusted me or my Cassettes since." Blaster leaned forward and stretched out a hand towards Victoria. It took her a moment to realize he was reaching for the data-pad she still held; she eagerly handed it over, and Blaster chuckled. "Lemme just get these catalogued, and we should be able to call it a cycle!"

Victoria awkwardly stood behind Blaster as he turned his chair back around to face the monitors. She had begun to pick at the tiny gaps in her fingers when Blaster gestured at the other empty chair beside him. "This might take a while. I'd go ahead and send ya off, but I reckon Mirage would think you're skippin' out if he found ya wonderin' the halls before your scheduled work cycle is over."

Victoria hesitantly sat down, awkwardly shifting in the chair. It was much bigger than the ones in her and Patronus's room, and it made her feel so tiny as her feet swung a few inches above the floor. She glanced over at Eject and almost wished she was as tiny as a Cassette. At least then she could just lounge her entire body on the seat.

"So…" Blaster started. He unraveled a chord from the data-pad and connected it to the console in the same place the other chord had been. "Ya still willin' to stick around?"

"Of course." Victoria watched the monitor's screen light up lines of what were now familiar symbols to her. She had practically memorized the contents of the data-pad at this point. "I'm not a quitter."

Blaster hummed, and his fingers flew across the glowing keys in front of him. Familiar symbols were replaced with lines of gibberish, and Victoria felt herself slump a little. She obviously still had a lot to learn…like actually learning how to _read_ all of those symbols.

Rewind walked around Blaster's seat and climbed up into the chair with Eject, shoving his brother's legs out of the way so that he could sit at the edge of the chair and reach the console. "Just think—a few more cycles, and you could graduate from messages to archiving. It would be fun to have someone other than Eject complain all cycle about it."

Victoria smiled and watched columns of cubes appear on the monitor in front of Rewind. Some of the lines of symbols began to funnel into one of the cubes, and Victoria perked up when she realized that the squares must have been the Cybertronian version of file folders. She would be a total _pro_ at that if she ever managed to "graduate." Her old jobs had taught her a lot about organizing computer files.

A rumble came from below her feet, and Victoria jumped at the noise. However, the rumble was nearly drowned out by Eject's groan and Rewind's chiming laugh. "Just what we needed: _another _archiving fanatic. I had hope for you, Rookie."

"There's still time ta convert her," Blaster joked. He reached down by Victoria's chair, and she finally noticed that Steeljaw sat between their chairs. Steeljaw leaned his head into Blaster's palm, but the rest of his body remained at rigid attention. "_Or_ you could just admit that archivin' ain't that bad."

"_Never_."

Victoria smiled at the laughs the pouting Eject received. Her frame slouched a little more in the chair, and she suddenly realized that she hadn't felt this relaxed since waking up in her new body. Her spark wavered a little when she automatically compared the scene to similar ones she had experienced back on Earth, but she pushed it away with a hum that regained Blaster's attention. "Do you mind me asking how you guys ended up here? Everyone seems to know everything about me, but I haven't learned a thing about anyone else except Brainstorm sometimes blows things up and Wildrider is a pervert."

"Not much to tell." Blaster aimed a smile at her, but even Victoria had figured out small "tells" like Nightbeat had mentioned earlier. Blaster's optics did not light up to the same brightness as they had earlier when he smiled. "We came along after most of the mechs here were already recruited. Mirage had docked at the outpost we were stationed and offered us a position here."

"You were allowed to leave just like that?" Victoria asked. She watched the rest of the symbols float into the cube folders before the screen changed. She stared at the new stream of information that appeared and could barely keep up with some of it as it flew across the screen. "I can't imagine an outpost just letting their comm. guy leave like that."

Eject was suddenly more interested in Rewind's work, and Steeljaw shifted closer to Blaster's chair. Even Ramhorn gruffly took a few steps out of his corner. Blaster focused on the screen in front of him. "They had other mechs that could run their communications."

A soft knock at the door prevented Victoria from asking any more questions. The knock was obviously a formality since the door slid open before Blaster could even turn away from the screen. Not that he did, leaving Victoria to turn and discover their visitor. She scowled at the familiar blue mech. "I thought we were avoiding each other so I wouldn't hold your hand day."

Mirage's expression was as stoic as ever, but Blaster turned to Rewind and Eject, both of who gave him the most innocent looking optics they could. "You told her about that?"

"I only wished to encourage your independence," Mirage answered before the Cassettes could speak. He stepped farther into the room and came to a stop between Victoria's and Blaster's chairs. A rumble came from Steeljaw, and Mirage gave the feline a nod. "I assume that I was somewhat successful?"

"I'm never coming to you about a problem ever again."

Mirage hummed and accepted the data-pad Blaster gave him without a word. Victoria absently leaned against the console, head propped in her hand, as Mirage scrolled through it. He hummed again and returned the data-pad, which was stashed somewhere below the console. "I assume that you can make do without Pixel for the remainder of the cycle?"

"'Course!" Blaster waved at Victoria with a grin. "Not 'cause I can't use her, but 'cause she's finished her job for the cycle. See ya at the beginnin' of the next rotation!"

Victoria gave Blaster and the Cassettes a wave before sliding off the chair. Like the good noble she had been taught to be, she stuck her nose at Mirage's offered arm and sashayed out of the Communication hub. Her dignity took a small nosedive when she tripped over the invisible crack that separated the room with the hallway, but she managed to save herself and ignored the small chuckle that came from Mirage.

She waited until the door completely closed before finally taking his arm. "I can't believe you told them not to take me to you. What if I had seriously needed your help for something?"

"I cannot watch over you all the time now," Mirage said. Victoria frowned but allowed him to lead her down the hallway. "I have taught you that nobles are independent by nature, and to be constantly by your side would negate a very stereotypical image that your identity requires you to adopt."

"But I had no idea what I was doing!" Victoria pulled on Mirage's arm as if to punish him for leaving her to fend for herself. What she really wanted to do was pinch him. Funny how the first person who had ever tempted her to execute such a childish punishment had metal skin. "Blaster had me running around with a data-pad I couldn't even read!"

Mirage came to a sudden stop, pulling Victoria back when she continued to walk. She wobbled a little but managed to steady herself without his help. "What do you mean?"

"I can't read Cybertronian," Victoria insisted. She was surprised by how bright Mirage's optics were when she met them with her own. "I mean, I've learned what a few symbols mean from Wheeljack, but I never learned much beyond numbers and basic letters. I can read a word or two, but nowhere on that data-pad were the words _toxic_, _radioactive_, or _frag_."

Mirage stared at her long enough to make her shift from one foot to the other. His golden optics gradually dimmed to their usual brightness, and he hummed. He automatically looped their arms together again and continued their journey. "Interesting."

"Interesting?" Victoria leaned forward in an attempt to get a better view of his face, but all she accomplished was nearly face-planting as the wheels on her back made her top-heavy. Mirage barely paused for her gain her balance again. "What? You thought I could read Cybertronian?"

"Neocybex at the least." Mirage paused to press the button to call the elevator. The doors slid open within seconds of him pressing it, and he pressed the button for the second deck once they had entered. "You never mentioned this…handicap before."

"I thought it would be pretty obvious. I might have switched bodies, but I didn't just wake up suddenly knowing everything Cybertronian. I'm surprised no one has asked why I say things like _days_ or _hours_. I'm good at sticking to words I've learned from you guys, but sometimes I slip up." Victoria could see in the reflection of the elevator's doors that Mirage was staring at her, so she turned to meet his gaze as the elevator came to a stop. "What?"

Mirage ignored the doors when they opened and continued to ignore them long enough for them to shut again. "You have not said a human word since you came online."

"What?"

"I simply assumed that you were doing it on purpose." Mirage reached over and pressed the button for the doors to open, and this time he ushered Victoria out of the elevator before they could close. "That you had been interacting with us long enough for our terms to become second nature for you. You appeared to had already developed a firm grasp of them by the end of our first meeting on Earth."

Victoria opened her mouth but closed it when she realized she had nothing to say. It was almost…disturbing to realize that nothing she said came out in the language she expected—an almost naïve assumption now that she thought about. What did she think was happening? That every mech on the ship, mechs that have likely never even heard of Earth let alone _visited_ the planet, spoke to her in perfect English?

As they rounded the corner of the hallway, Victoria lifted her head. "Do you think it's because of the AllSpark?"

Her voice came out softer than she had intended, but Mirage's nod indicated that he had heard it all the same. "I believe so, which would honestly explain your accent."

Great—she had a weird accent on top of all of this? "Accent?"

"One that many of the Iaconian aristocracy would label 'Ancient High Class.'" Mirage stopped short in front of a door, but he made no move to open it. Instead he fully turned to Victoria, unlooping their arms to cross his arms over his chest and examine her with a gleam in his optics. "One of the most reputable families living in the Towers claimed to have access to an ancient video file that was dated to the time of the original Thirteen Primes. They insisted that through that video they had discovered that those Primes spoke in an accent, which rigorous practice had enabled them to mimic. It was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard, but many of my former companions believed them and strove to mimic the accent as well."

"And it sounded like this?"

"No." Victoria frowned, but Mirage's stoic expression remained steadfast. "Yours is less…forced. There's also an airy lilt to it that I believe they mistook to be nasally. It's…pretty, I suppose would be the easiest way to describe. Nothing like how you once sounded."

"So the AllSpark has somehow made it possible for me to understand Cybertronian— "

"Neocybex is the more correct term."

"It put another language in my head!" Victoria hissed, her annoyance rising because of the almost dismissing tone Mirage addressed her with. She spun around on her heel and took a few steps away from Mirage. She lifted her hands to grasp the sides of her head, and she only realized then how badly they had been shaking. "What if it's done something else without me realizing? The memories I can handle—the memories don't do anything but make my head hurt. But it's making me do things like that subconsciously? What if I wake up one morning and find out that I've stabbed Patronus through the spark?"

Hands fell on her shoulders, and Victoria swallowed around the large lump that had formed in her through. Mirage spun her around so that his golden optics could stare directly into hers. When she tried to turn her head away, he lifted his hands from her shoulders and forced her head to turn back. "You are overthinking this."

"'Overthinking' my ass! You don't have something inside of you that's tried to kill you before!"

"This may all simply be a small side effect from it merging with you." Victoria scowled and huffed when Mirage refused to let her turn away. "Act like the grown woman you are and stop attempting to ignore me. The AllSpark obviously has its limits; it has no power to dictate how you act on a daily basis, and it only gave you the ability to speak Neocybex. Unless you have forgotten your exaggerated struggle when it came to reading a simple list of names."

Mirage released her head, and Victoria immediately took a step back. He mimicked her actions and placed a reasonable distance between them. Victoria took a deep breath and placed a hand over her throbbing spark. "I wasn't exaggerating."

"Of course not."

"It was a real struggle."

"I believe you."

Victoria's fingers curled into fists to match her scowl. "I hate that tone."

"I am aware. After all, it is the same patronizing tone my sire would adopt to convey his disappointment." He nodded towards her, and Victoria almost imagined his softening expression was some indicator that for all his deadpanned teasing, he sympathized with her on some level. "I am the last mech to put blind faith in a mech that before this ordeal was nothing but a legend. However, there was one thing I learned during my short period of time with Vector, and that was that he is a mech who does not do things halfway. Your frame is currently a prison to the AllSpark—it cannot escape, and it cannot take control of you. We have plenty of time to reach Cybertron before Vector's runes lose all their magic or whatever explanation he had for how the AllSpark remained trapped."

Victoria gave Mirage a tiny smile. "No offense, but you kinda suck at pep talks."

Mirage's frown remained firm, and Victoria wondered for a brief second if Mirage ever resented the role he had been dumped into as much as she resented hers. Their early days in the cabin had shown that underneath his polite demeanor was an uptight, sarcastic individual, and the many lessons she had endured from him had solidified those traits of his personality. Sometimes though, Victoria was certain that he grew tired of all the little things he had to manage in order to keep her from losing her mind, like force-feed her Energon or not look at her when she needed his help in the showers.

She could see now why he insisted on her being independent of him during the day.

Mirage finally looked away as the door they stood in front of slid open. Patronus froze on the threshold of the door, one foot lifted in mid-air to take a step. Victoria cringed at the dents she immediately spotted scattered across his frame. She took a step forward and reached for the one on the side of his head. "Patronus—"

The sound of heavy footsteps made the next words die in her throat, and Patronus pushed his way out of the door to stand between her and Mirage, wings shooting up from the tired pose they had adopted. Victoria tensed at the sight of the large, grey frame that followed Patronus from the room, having to duck under the doorframe because he was so large. Mirage merely gave the mech a stiff nod. "Megatron."

Megatron's red optics seemed to stare down the bridge of his nose at him. They left the Autobot and landed on Victoria, causing her to stiffen even more. A smirk flashed across Megatron's face, showing off sharp teeth that his former toy form certainly had not possessed. "Have you finally overcome your fear to face me?"

For once, Victoria could not produce a quick retort, not because she lacked one but because of the sheer _terror_ that shot through her spark like an icy arrow. All of the things she had done to him as a toy—trapped him the Jar of Solitary Confinement, manhandled him in front of his sworn nemesis, mocked him for his tiny form—came rushing back to her along with his dire threats of revenge. Now the tables were turned as he towered over her tiny frame, his hands large enough to crush her head with ease.

When Victoria didn't immediately respond, Megatron released a derisive grunt. To her immense surprise, he turned away from them and began to trek down the long hallway, his large frame nearly taking up half the hallway. "How disappointing; and here I had expected _more_ than a sniveling femme."

Victoria's hands clenched into fists, but she did not attempt to stop Megatron in any way. She only relaxed when he finally vanished from view, and she turned her attention back to Patronus. "Are you hurt? There are so many dents! How have you managed to hide these from me for so long?"

"Today was a little worse than usual." Patronus glanced down at his chest where a majority of the dents could be found. "Megatron had to keep repeating the same maneuver again and again until I managed to deflect him. And I usually ask Breakdown if he can fix the dents. He's really good at doing that, and I didn't want you to get anymore upset than you already do."

Victoria pushed Patronus's arm and forced him to turn around. She frowned at the few dents that littered his wings; those _had _to have hurt. "I don't like you doing this. Especially not with _him_."

"I know, but I have to do this." Patronus turned back around, and his optics shone with a fierce determination. "He's the only one here that can show me how a real Prime fights, and Vector made sure he understood that. He only gets really grumpy when it takes me too long to get the hang of something."

Victoria was prepared to argue with him, but she caught a glimpse of Mirage from the corner of her eyes. Though the tension from Megatron's appearance had drained from his frame, Mirage's optics remained hard and unreadable as he watched the two interact. He nodded when he noticed Victoria's attention was on him, and she was reminded of the conversation they had the day before about this. Was this some underhanded way of him proving that Patronus did not come out these training sessions completely wrecked?

A warmth suddenly spread through her chest, and Victoria lifted a hand as if to smother it. After all the crap the AllSpark had put them through up until this point, it did _not_ have any say in this matter! "I don't want you getting hurt…"

Patronus's wings shot up, and his optics hardened even more. "But if I don't do this, how will I be able to protect you? Megatron has proven that despite my size, I can't fight. I wouldn't have even been able to take down Wildrider before his training! I _need _this, Miss Vicky; I need to be able to _protect_ you."

The crack in Patronus's voice instantly shattered any resolve Victoria had. She may never learn what had happened to Toshi before his transformation into Patronus, but whatever had happened had left a deep impression on the mechling. He sounded so desperate now; so desperate to keep the ones he cared for safe. She hated how he had been pushed to this fate, and for the first time since waking up on the ship, she felt the AllSpark hum inside of her in agreement.

Victoria reached out and grabbed Patronus's hand, squeezing it when he tightly gripped her hand back. "You have to promise to come to me or Mirage if he does something out of line."

"Of course."

"That includes saying anything degrading towards you."

"Okay."

"Or if he seriously hurts you. Don't you _dare_ try to hide that from me."

"I won't."

Victoria turned to Mirage, hand still firmly grasped in Patronus's. "You _do_ have a plan for if Megatron changes his mind about all of this, right? This is a dramatic change from what I saw back in the cabin."

A hard glint flashed across Mirage's optics, and his hard expression left little room for her to doubt his answer. "Of course. Why do you think I tolerate Brainstorm's ego?"

Victoria nodded and patted the back of Patronus's hand with her free one. "I don't like this—I never _will_ like this. But…we have to do this. There's no returning to what we used to be."

She felt like her words were more to reassure herself than anything else, but Patronus smiled and nodded. His optics reflected the same sense of determination and excitement to learn a new thing that had been prevalent in Toshi, and she hoped that he was able to continue clinging to that. She did not want to see the same haunted look on him that had sometimes plagued Bluestreak, or Wheeljack, or any other mech she had come to know.

Now, she tried to smile for him. "Let's go get those dents popped out before Breakdown finishes his shift. If he's as good as you say he is, it would better to have him do it than Knock Out."

"Speaking of which, I believe you had an appointment with Knock Out at the end of this cycle."

Patronus laughed at Victoria's fierce scowl. "Look, if we're doing the whole 'independent Pixel' thing, that means you can't follow me around invisible, Mr. You-Can't-Hold-My-Hand-Forever."

"I would _never_."

Victoria had to fight the grin that threatened to ruin her scowl. She felt her spark lighten at the genuine laughter that continued to come from Patronus. She took Patronus's hand and pulled him down the hallway with Mirage following at a respectable distance. "I heard that you helped out Nightbeat earlier…"

**~III~**

Something was wrong.

She felt it the moment she became aware of surroundings. Ever since waking up in her new body, Victoria discovered that each time she fell into recharge, she found herself in a place similar to the "limbo" that Vector had pulled her from. The first time had left her startled, her panic forcing her to wake back up and not remaining awake until Patronus woke up too.

Gradually though, she had discovered that there was nothing to fear and had drawn comfort from the sparks that orbited around her. She had quickly figured out which orb of swirling colors represented the mechs she had been bound to—Sunstreaker's and Sideswipe's clung closest to each other, tiny and more colorful in comparison to the majority of the others; fiery orange strands licked Skywarp's spark, which drifted farthest away from her; two little baby green orbs danced as close as they could to the barrier that separated them from her, and Victoria had known immediately that hyperactive one was Recall while the smaller rose-tinted one was Topaz, occasionally bonking against her brother to gain his attention. Bluestreak's shone the brightest, and the green strands that whirled around it always crept along the barrier as if searching for the smallest opening to reconnect with her.

Something was wrong this time, though. When she awoke in the darkness, the swirling sparks appeared more distant. A wider gap stood between them and her; every move she made to get closer only widened that gap. She reached her hand out towards Bluestreak's spark, but it was like she was attempting wade through a pit of mud that sucked her in the more she struggled. Her entire body felt like some force was weighing it down.

Victoria finally gave up her attempts and stood completely still. The moment she gave in, the entire space began to twist around. Her view of the familiar and comforting sparks became a blur of color that gradually melted into the black. She swiveled around to find some means of escape and froze when instead she found a black form with bright white dots as eyes rushing towards her.

Her body jackknifed off the berth, and a short shriek escaped her. The low hum of the ship was the only indication that the darkness she stared into now was different. Her hands frantically scrapped at the stinging pain in her chest, and she curled her legs as close to her as she could, resting her forehead against her knees as she attempted to stop the wheezing gasps that came from her.

After a while, she managed to calm herself enough to bring her breathing back under control, and Victoria lifted her head to ensure that she was once more in her hab-suite. Her eyes fell on the dark form of Patronus curled up on his berth as much as his frame would allow him to, his back towards her and wings clinging to his lower back. With the pain in her chest gradually fading, Victoria slowly lowered herself back onto the berth and balanced her hands on her abdomen.

She stared at the ceiling until Patronus began to shift in his sleep, his whimpers prompting her to move over to his berth and hum the night terrors away.

* * *

**AN:** Because it's been so long since I've updated, I'd suggest checking out the "Series of Sparks" I have posted on my DeviantArt. The link can be found on my profile, but I didn't want there to be any confusion about the final scene and what all the sudden colors meant. ;)

You guys have no idea how long this chapter has been bugging…well, considering it took over a year to update, I guess you do know how long it's been bugging me. XD This chapter was just so frustrating! There were a few times that I restarted the chapter just to restart it again about halfway through; I even moved on to other stories in hopes that it would help free up my writer's block for this chapter! Now, here it is, and I'm still not a 100% happy with it. :/

I have skeletal outlines planned out for the next few chapters, so I honestly hope it won't take nearly as long for the next update. I'm going to try to juggle my other ongoing story and editing Pint Sized and A New Version of Reality to fix some of the inconsistencies that a second reading brought to my attention with this one. Because of that and how long it took me upload this chapter, I'm nowhere near being comfortable promising when the next update will be. :(

But I am _not_ abandoning this story! It may take me forever to update, but I will finish this thing if it's the last thing I do!

So until next update! :D


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